Cradle
by Zollercoaster
Summary: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel
1. Their Encounter: Snape

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **A strange force took over his body when he saw those bruises. Severus had been resigned to a life of unavenged grievances for himself, but there was no way he would let any one else suffer what he had.

Chapter 1: Their Encounter

Professor Severus Snape was regarded as tough and unforgiving by his students. And while that attitude could be applied to him in the classroom, that was the extent of its accuracy. Actually, Severus had silently endured and decided against retaliation on so much abuse throughout his lifetime that he was ashamed of his passivity.

He had endured his earliest abuses from as far back as he could remember – assault and neglect at the hands of the bigot and insecure wreck that he called his parents. And yet like many victims he was conditioned to ally himself with those he feared. Upon joining Hogwarts, therefore, it was only natural that he was sucked into the Slytherin mindset.

No matter how terrible these abuses of his person had been, however, Severus had long since gotten revenge for them or vented by sharing them with others. Only one abuse had been barred behind cement walls within him, never shared or avenged, filling him with such vitriol that it could account for much of his acidic personality, or so he liked to tell himself.

On his way to deliver the first of his monthly progress reports to the Headmaster, he followed the same path that he had walked in the past toward the main persecutor of his happiness. He no longer even considered the thought of revenge against Albus Dumbledore for his crimes, having long since been resigned to the impotence of his desire for justice.

Standing outside the headmaster's gargoyle was always an unnerving experience. Nobody could prove that the Headmaster watched visitors through the statue, but everybody who had ever set foot in that office believed it with the absolute confidence of schoolchild superstition. Severus jumped, expecting the headmaster to appear from behind the door as it swung open with a sinister click to reveal, instead, the 6th year Harry Potter. His eyes narrowed at the boy automatically, long since conditioned to any Potter as the trigger of his scorn.

The boy walked with his eyes on the steps in front of him, as if he couldn't trust his feet. He limped sideways down the steps, bracing himself against the wall with both arms as he eased his way down. His eyes were narrowed, not with the same disinclination that darkened Severus's, but with the concentration of a sculptor whose tiniest slip would destroy his entire statue. In an instant, Severus's heart stopped. It was impossible.

But Severus knew. As soon as he saw that familiar limp, he knew with absolute certainty that the Headmaster had not stopped his abuse with Severus, but had carried on his perversions against Potter, of all people.

He closed his eyes and took a quiet gulp of air, hoping that the boy would be gone when he reopened them. Dumbledore had gotten away with it easily when it was with Severus, the pathetic Slytherin boy that nobody liked. But the so-called Savior of the Wizarding World? _Madness_.

When Potter righted himself at the bottom of the staircase, straightening his back and tilting his head for automatic arrogance, he ceased to look suspicious. He could have been any one of the Gryffindor boys, long since brainwashed by his house to reveal his every emotion, no matter how dangerous. He looked up and noticed his professor, the slight widening of his eyes and tilt backward his only signs of surprise. Severus recognized the defiant glare the boy met him with; he was building his defenses to withstand a verbal assault.

"Potter." Severus stated simply, feeling out the situation. Even on the best of days, the teenager was as volatile as a badly made potion.

"Professor." The boy responded with an equally unwavering voice, showing nothing of the suffering that had painted his face a moment ago.

That did it for Severus. He could accept his own suffering, having grown accustomed to mistreatment, but this was Lilly's boy, Severus's student. Blood coursed through him, pounding in his ears, demanding that he act immediately and put a stop to this _appalling _abuse of power.

"Come." Severus grabbed the boy by the wrist and turned, pulling his suddenly terrified student behind him.

It would have been safer to levitate him, or at least to make his way through the halls more slowly, but the invisible prickle of eyes watching him from within the office drove him to flee. He stalked quickly to the dungeons, whipped on by the pounding in his temples. Once inside his office, he pushed the boy through the doors, shutting and warding them. Potter stumbled into the center of the room and stopped, turning to face Severus with a wary, angry expression.

"What do you want?" He croaked, half defiant and half agonized.

The pull to act, to _fix, _stayed clamped over his muscles, refusing to let him open his mouth until he had _done _something. He scurried to his desk and yanked the middle drawer open with a bang of the wood and a clank of the metal handle, removing an emergency potions kit from a drawer and placing it on the desk with a thud. He looked at it for a second, then raised his eyes toward the boy shivering in the center of his classroom.

"I'll fix you." It was as much a command to himself as anything, and Severus wondered if the boy could sense the blazing anger of this strangeforce that had taken over his body.

"Huh?" was all the overwhelmed sixth year could bring himself to respond with.

Severus grabbed the kit and stormed closer to the Gryffindor, who took several running steps backward to maintain distance between them.

"Sir, what are you doing?" Harry asked, fear bleeding into his voice. "Oh. You're going to hand me over to Voldemort now, right? You think I'll just let that happen?" There was an edge of panic in his voice and his eyes were clear, but unfocused, as if studying something in the distance.

"No." Severus murmured, calm drowning him. There was a faint buzzing in the back of this head, like the whistle of air from a stuffed nose, as he set the kit down on a chair.

The chair's leather squeaked like a dying rat, and Potter's eyes fell toward the sound, his cheeks paling. Severus observed this only in the back of his mind; in the front of his mind, the buzzing persisted, like a fly screaming _fix this, fix us, fix him. _He could think of nothing else.

"Potter." He spoke softly. "Harry. If I'm to heal you, you'll need to take off your clothes."

The boy flinched more visibly this time and tossed his head, rejecting what he had just heard. "You're insane." He scoffed, not incorrectly. "I'm not _undressing _in front of you. And I'm not injured! Take me to the hospital wing if you don't believe me."

As if the boy would let that happen. Severus knew that he would flee as soon as he could escape, or otherwise he would let Dumbledore take care of the Healer. Severus would have done the same in the past.

"Do it!" He barked, anger or terror or _something _resurfacing, consuming him in his drive to make it all better.

And as if those words were a spell, Potter's face went blank. His hand jerked to his neck, where there was a magical knot only the wearer could untie, and before either of them could think twice, Potter's robes fell to his feet.

Dumbledore's preferences had degenerated over the years. The boy wore only boxers underneath his robes, likely at the headmaster's command, but Severus noticed this only passingly as he choked on his tongue in horror. The child's sides were covered in finger-shaped bruises, with dark rope-burns sprawled across his chest, accompanied by an array of scars and abrasions. There were even darker rope burns around his lower arms, and signs of chafing from being bound repeatedly.

"Turn around." Severus breathed, half to himself; Potter only yelped at the sound of his voice. He pulled his arms over his chest, apparently unwilling or unable to bend down to reclaim his robes.

Hunched, the boy lost more control over his face, revealing confusion that he likely meant to hide. The only reason he didn't flee to a corner of the room was probably some dim hope that he could still hide the truth. Either that, or some fear of being undefended as he moved.

_We have to get away. He'll find us. _The buzzing became an ocean, each wave another push to make something happen. But, muscles tightening as if he really were bracing himself against the forces of nature, Severus told himself that healing had to come first.

Sex had been new to him when the Headmaster introduced it, but it had been in the Slytherin's nature that, had the Headmaster also entered into his father's territory, physical violence, Severus would not have endured it. Apparently, this was not the case with Potter, and the Headmaster knew it. The permanent signs of abuse that marred the boy's skin were proof of that.

Severus growled, reaching into his potions. "Come over here, Potter."

Harry took a step back, trembling in both fear and defiance. "Harry." He tried again. "These will make the pain stop. You know that."

The boy shook his head, tightening his grip on his shoulders. Another wave struck, demanding that Severus grab him, see with his own eyes that the boy was healed. Again, the professor dug in his feet. He held out salve and 3 potions, one to ease pain, one to calm, and one to speed the healing of the skin while fighting infection.

Potter hesitated for a moment before shaking his head again. He likely recognized at least one of the potions, and knew somewhere in his mind that they were safe. But he couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't trust. Just like Severus.

Severus set them down on the chair next to the kit and backed away. "The salve should help with both the rope marks and the open wounds. Can you put it on yourself? Or are you too weak?"

The final barb was unkind, but necessary, the noises assured him. The Headmaster had surely seen Severus take Harry away with him. Even if he thought the Slytherin too cowed to do anything about it, he would appear sooner or later to make sure. Harry was scared, and wouldn't do anything on his own, so Severus had to fix him as quickly as possible.

The challenge did the trick, though. Harry stomped forward and grabbed the salve, which Severus had already opened before he set it down.

"Don't watch." Harry ordered, scooping some of the yellow substance with his fingers.

Severus turned away obediently, though he burned to make sure the boy applied the salve correctly. "It doesn't take much." He instructed. "Just a light touch should do it. It'll need to be applied a few times before they heal."

"I know." Harry grumbled, breathing sharply at the sting of the potion.

"Do you?" Severus prodded, glad that that the child was talking again.

"You've said it yourself, sir. I get myself injured all the time. This is nothing new."

"…It'll need time to dry, as I'm sure you know. No cloth should touch it for a little while." No response. "You should take the potions too. They'll fight off the pain for a bit."

Severus turned and observed as the boy swallowed the pain potion and shuddered, face flushing as he looked up with startled, wondering eyes. Keeping extra strength potions in his kits might have inadvertently helped him win the boy's trust, it seemed. Harry drank the next two potions, his eyes glazing over just slightly as the calming potion took effect.

"How long?" Severus murmured, unable to raise his voice beyond the pitch he would use to address a wild animal. "I _will _get the answer, one way or another."

Harry had no reason to doubt that. "Since first year." The child responded just as quietly, once again diverting his eyes toward his feet. Extra-strength calming potions such as the one he had just consumed tended to make people freer with information.

As the next waves crashed around his ears, Severus sighed, weary from a lifetime of misery and ready to take on yet another responsibility. "I won't let him touch you again."

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I'm trying this out. Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	2. Their Flight: Harry

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Snape's revelations rocked his world, and Harry could do nothing but be swept away.

Chapter 2: Their Flight

"How long?" Snape asked quietly. "I _will _get the answer, one way or another."

Harry's stomach tightened and undulated, as if contorting itself to keep the answer inside. Snape's low pitch was like Dumbledore's when he dropped his facade to threaten someone directly. The professor stared at him, his pupils flickering up and down as if he were trying to hide his study of Harry's body.

Cold sweat oozed through Harry's skin, thickening goosebumps already raised by the room's frigidity. This conversation should not be happening. Why had he indulged his tired muscles by limping down the stairs? Dumbledore saw everything. He would know what his spy was doing. He would hurt Snape and punish Harry.

The sharp lines of the wooden furniture softened as his eyes lost focus. Harry was familiar with calming potions, and they'd never had such a strong effect on him before. As if his lips had been physically loosened by the potion, they formed the words he had meant to keep inside his head: "Since first year."

What had he done wrong? How had he given himself away? Harry gazed at the crack in the stone floor that ran from the desk to his foot; it was puffy in his blurred sight, and uneven — a natural abrasion. It was familiar ground, better than the mockery that surely filled the man's eyes. Hope for anything but scorn was pointless, as he had learned long ago. He could rely on no one but himself.

"I won't let him touch you again." Came Snape's firm reply.

Every muscle in Harry's body tensed, his pupils readjusting with the strength of his surprise. Had he heard that right? He could feel the professor's gaze on him, but couldn't react through his shock. He had to have imagined that, right? A desperate, hopeful burn was rising in his chest – an acidic blister that would scar when it popped. Harry snarled at the floor, disgusted with himself for finding hope so easily.

He heard footsteps as the professor walked to the corner of the room, his shoes beating rhythmically against the polished floor. When the creak of a cabinet echoed throughout the office, Harry relaxed even as moisture gathered in his eyes and that blister of hope feeding on his heart prepared to burst. This was familiar ground. Here was the whip, or the ropes, or the potions, which Harry supposed could be his professor's preference, given his occupation. Memories flashed before his eyes:

_Dumbledore opening a hidden cabinet in the wall and "You need to learn to endure pain, Harry" and bracing himself against the wall as the leather cut through the air and his skin and oh, oh the agony! _

He flinched as something heavy landed on his back. When no pain followed the impact, he opened the eyes he had clenched shut and met the startled gaze of his professor.

"Sorry, sir." He whispered without thought, knowing the lines, "That was ungrateful."

He wrapped his arms around himself and felt a scratchy woolen blanket draped over his shoulders, which made him feel even worse. The professor had not yet harmed him, and in fact had always kept him alive. Dumbledore was going to hurt the man because of Harry's carelessness.

"I suppose I should have thought I might startle you. My apologies. The blanket should let in enough air to dry the salve." There was that quiet, strangely restrained voice again.

Severus Snape, holding back emotion?

Intense anger flared to life, and Harry stepped back from the man, pushing the warmth from his shoulders and staring defiantly at his 'protector.' His rage instantly turned inward at the stupidity of exposing his wounds, but there was no way he could show weakness by retrieving the blanket he had just rejected.

Snape's eyes flickered to his neck, and Harry trembled in humiliation, hunching the flexed muscles of his shoulders and ignoring the painful tightening of the skin around his elbows. "I don't need pity from anyone, sir." He growled, eyes stinging as he glared at the man looking down on him. "You won't let him touch me? Screw you! I won't be underestimated by anyone, and I certainly won't fall for such blatant lies!"

The professor watched with slightly widened eyes, apparently somewhat taken aback by his anger. Of course Harry wouldn't just take his pity! Gryffindors were supposed to rage at injustice; it was expected. Except when you were sprawled across the Headmaster's desk — then, obedience took precedence.

Snape's eyes flashed dangerously. This was it; his true intentions would be out in the open now. Provoked anger meant pain, but predictable pain that Harry could deal with instead of this strange burning of his heart that threatened to destroy him.

"I'm _angry_!" The man spat. "You're my student! One of _my_ students was being brutalized under _my _watch, and I didn't notice a damned thing! And I…I was once Dumbledore's victim, so I _should _have seen it much much sooner. I shouldn't have let this happen."

Every beat of Harry's heart sent ripples throughout his body. "You…?"

Snape's body sagged, and he took a deep breath before meeting Harry's eyes. "Yes, Harry, I was also abused by that man when I was a student."

"But…why?" Everything that had once seemed logical was toppling down around him. _This is for you, dear boy. I'm teaching you to be stronger. _

"Because I was a little Slytherin that nobody liked and he knew because of my father that I wasn't the kind to tell others about my abuse." The professor's voice never wavered as he offered his explanation, which would have sounded rushed coming from anybody but Snape.

Harry's breathing picked up and he shifted a leg that had started to tingle. "Then…why?" _Why me?_ They both knew what he was asking.

"Because you," Snape knelt in front of him and clasped his hands. "Were a kind-hearted, self-sacrificing little boy who would never want to disobey the man who gave you a purpose."

"Th-that was training! Pain conditioning!" Harry defended, yanking his hands free as he stepped away from the man. He couldn't be just another victim. Dumbledore hurt him to make him stronger; Dumbledore punished him because he never got stronger like he was supposed to; Dumbledore gave him the training he needed.

"You know that's a lie." The professor said calmly, grabbing the blanket as he rose and holding it out to him. Grateful that Snape didn't try to touch him again, Harry took the blanket and wrapped it around himself like a robe. "The headmaster has a great talent for reading people. Just as he knew I would allow the sexual abuse, but would never tolerate the physical, it seems that he knew you would take all the pain he could throw at you in order to prove yourself."

When had Snape learned to understand him so well? The man was staring at the bruises on his neck again, as if he wanted to squeeze them deeper until they scarred. Harry suddenly hoped that the man hadn't noticed the scars on his back as he rose. As if there really were hands around his throat, his airway clenched and his breathing picked up. He pulled the blanket tighter around his body, nauseated by the lack of air and the sinister aura bearing down on him. Was Snape trying to help him, or to hurt him? Nothing made any sense.

"You were wronged, Harry." Black eyes slid up to seek his, and Harry looked away. "We were both wronged, but we're safe now."

_Remember. _Harry commanded himself. _Nobody ever does anything simply to help me._ _Even though Dumbledore was training me, he was doing it for the war. Snape hates Dumbledore, so he wants to take me away from him. And he's a Death Eater. _It really was a dangerous situation, and Harry knew that he should get away from the angry professor as fast as possible. But was Snape really any worse than Dumbledore? No. It would be better to surrender, no matter how afraid he was. If he acted like he believed the man cared about him, maybe Snape would keep playing along.

"Are you listening?" Snape's voice had an edge of annoyance in it that made Harry snap to attention. The man walked over to him, and Harry resisted the urge to stumble backwards again. He had to act obedient.

Snape clenched Harry's hand and made him loosen his grip on the blanket. Had he been covering himself too fiercely, or did the man just want to look at his body? Harry shook despite himself as long arms wrapped around him, fingers running up and down his back. The professor sighed, and Harry could feel their stomachs press against each other, each of Snape's breaths bringing their groins too close together for it to be accidental.

"I meant what I said. I won't let him touch you."

"You can't stop him." Harry pulled back as much as he could in the man's grasp, putting space between him and the danger area. "No one has the power to incriminate Albus bloody Dumbledore." Harry cursed himself a moment later. Why did he keep giving his skepticism away when he was supposed to play along?

A large hand slid up to the back of his head, fingers petting the bottom of his hair. "I know that." The man told him. "That's why we're getting out of Hogwarts tonight."

"What?" The proximity of their bodies was too stressful to endure, and the addition of such a firm declaration made it nearly impossible to think through the potion-supressed fear filling his head.

"There's no stopping the Headmaster like this. And certainly not within his own castle. Come. Everyone's at dinner, so we can get your things from the tower and get out of here right now."

Harry didn't know what was going on, and before he could try to make sense of anything, Severus lifted him, wrapping Harry's legs around his waist, and started out of the room. Harry squirmed uncomfortably in the criminal arms wrapped around him, but the movement only smashed his groin harder against the death eater's hip. Harry stopped squirming and clenched his fists instead, trying to think of anything but how Dumbledore had just had him in his lap in a position like this_, and he was tied up so that he couldn't do more than impale himself or move his hips with aching knees while bruising hands egged him onwards_.

"Someone will see us!" Harry hissed, desperate to be freed from the man's grasp.

"I cast a notice-me-not." Severus retaliated, moving swiftly up some stairs. Harry didn't bother to protest further, merely clinging to his single covering with thoughts running wild.

Was this real? When the man said he wouldn't let Dumbledore touch him, he wasn't just going to tell someone and wipe his hands of it? He was sacrificing his job for revenge! That meant that the man wanted Harry for himself; he wanted Harry's pain to belong to him, to punish Harry for always failing even after the man saved his life. He hated Harry so much that he would sacrifice anything to make him suffer.

Yes, that was it. He was getting revenge on both Dumbledore and Harry at the same time. Snape's arms were firm around his waist and his strides were swift and purposeful. He didn't even slow down as they walked by Fred and George in the hallway, and Harry tensed with embarrassment before he remembered that nobody would notice the odd-looking pair as they made their way to Gryffindor tower.

When they got to the Fat Lady, Severus nudged him, shrinking his personal space even further. "Password?"

"Amazon." Harry spoke aloud, and the portrait swung open, squawking about invisible students surprising her all the time.

Snape didn't seem lost once within the common room, and strode directly up the stairway to the 6th-year dorms, seeming not-at-all bothered by the burden in his arms. At the door, Snape paused thoughtfully before dropping Harry to the ground. Harry wondered if Snape was so impatient that he would do him right in front of the dorm. The man would probably think it satisfying to top a lion in its den.

Harry looked up at his professor, waiting for the bad news. "I'll give you some privacy to get your things. Be swift!"

The raven-haired boy's gaze snapped to meet Snape's for the first time, so uncertain of what was happening that he needed his confirmation. Snape nodded slowly, conspiratorially, and Harry fled into the dorm, adrenaline pumping as the door swung shut behind him.

"Harry!"

Harry whirled toward the voice, finding a startled Neville standing across the room. He hesitated only a moment before rushing to his trunk and throwing his things into it, ignoring the presence of his year-mate behind him.

"Harry?" Neville asked from behind him this time. "What happened to you? You're hurt." His voice sounded concerned.

Harry kept packing even as he realized that Neville could see some of his wounds through the open part of the blanket. Snape apparently wanted to keep him naked, and the thought of why strained the goosebumps already protruding from the cold. He did his best to ignore the other boy and thoughts of Snape, taking out a scarf before slamming the trunk closed and standing.

"Harry!" Neville sounded angry this time. "What are you doing?"

Harry turned around and Neville gasped, getting a better look at the bites and rope burns across the front of Harry's body. Harry's face burned, sure that Neville could read the panic in his eyes.

"I'm getting out of here." he said, tying the scarf around his waist to hold the blanket shut. That way, at least only his neck would be exposed.

"Harry…" Neville suddenly looked close to tears.

Harry grabbed his trunk and walked toward the door. Snape was waiting for him, and he was sick of hiding his pain.

Outside the door, Snape shrunk Harry's trunk before taking hold of his arm.

"Let's go." The man said, just as Neville pushed the door open beside them. He stopped short when he saw Professor Snape grasping Harry's arm. Then his gaze hardened.

"Longbottom?" the man asked, an evaluating look on his face. Harry wondered if Neville would try to petrify him.

"Are you the one who did this?" The other boy waved a hand at Harry, eyes never leaving Snape's.

"Of course not!" the man snarled. Then, more quietly: "No."

"Then you're helping him escape." Neville stated. "I'm going to help you."

Once again, Harry was astonished. Before he had time to react, however, Snape accepted Neville's offer with a nod and recast the notice-me-not charm before pulling Harry down the corridor.

They walked swiftly, not running, but in a definite hurry. Neville trailed behind them, eyes darting around the corridor warily. As he was led toward the exit, it struck Harry that Snape was probably going to lock him up somewhere so that he could use him whenever he felt like it. The man wouldn't have to pretend like Dumbledore did if Harry let himself be taken away from the safety of the crowds.

Harry took a deep breath, trying to tell his legs that he wanted to flee. At least Dumbledore was familiar. When he got a summons to the Headmaster's office, he knew what to expect. He had time to prepare. But what were Snape's preferences? The man was likely even crueler. He could leave Harry writhing in pain for hours, and nobody else would be around to stop him.

Why wouldn't his legs do what he wanted them to?

Nobody spoke as they reached the corridor to the main hall. As they entered the corridor, Snape froze mid-step and then pressed Harry up against the wall. For a moment Harry couldn't register anything except the prospect of pain, until he came back to himself and noticed the sound of students' chatter up the hall.

"Seems the early ones are leaving now." Neville murmured.

Harry closed his eyes, helpless to do anything but let this man guide him, though whether to hell or a relative heaven he was not yet sure. Chances were that he was being taken to hell.

"I'll clear a path for you to get through." Neville told them, and ran down the corridor yelling about Peeves.

The chattering stopped as the other boy ran into the main hall, tripped over his feet, and tumbled to the ground where people had leapt out of the way. They all began to laugh as he sat there looking dazed, rambling about a dungbomb assault.

"It seems Longbottom has some decent qualities after all." Snape told Harry before leaping into action and taking off down the hall at a full run.

"Good luck." Neville whispered as he felt the air displacement from the pair passing him.

"Yeah." Harry said out loud, causing a few Ravenclaws to look around in confusion. He would need all the luck he could get.

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Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! I think it's a bit of a new take on Severus rescuing Harry, or at least I hope so! Thanks for the reviews last chapter, and please review this time as well!


	3. Their Trauma: Snape

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Severus was alarmed to find Harry on the edge of insanity. It was his job to help, but all he could think of was his own past, and what he wished someone had done for him. Unfortunately, Harry is a bit different.

Chapter 3: Their Trauma

"What do I do _now?"_ Severus asked himself as he cradled Harry's small body in his arms. He hadn't planned out his escape at all in his desperation to do for Harry what he had always wanted someone to do for him. On a stupid – _no, not stupid, this was important –_ whim of his, he had them seeking refuge in a forest without anywhere to go.

A small, quickly muffled sob caught his attention. Harry had clutched his head in his hands, curling further into himself. "_Why?" _the boy whispered despairingly, breathing heavily in his panic. "It's not…I _don't…_damnit!"

Severus turned his pupil's head toward him, looking seriously at the face distorted with grief. The boy's eyes were dilated, his breathing frenetic, indicating a panic attack. He pulled Harry tightly against him and squeezed for a moment, hoping the pressure on his wounds would distract him from his fears. It didn't. Harry continued to heave, heavy tremors shooting through his fragile body even as his eyes locked on something far away.

Left with no other choice, Severus gritted his teeth and jabbed his magic into the side of Harry's neck, making the child jerk back and slump unconsciously against his chest. Severus lowered the boy to the ground before righting himself, taking care that he did not further injure him.

"I suppose it's my job to take care of him now." Severus mused, and stood there for a long time gazing at the boy's still form. It hurt him to see such suffering from the outside, to know that someone else had been suffering the same pain he had all this time.

The violence of the boy's panic attack was alarming; he had seemed so stable for so many years, yet one evening was all it took to disassemble him. Harry had trailed along through their whole escape, and at first Severus thought it was the calming potion keeping him submissive. But Harry had yelled at him. He had yelled at him _after taking an extra strength calming potion. _The only times people were known to overcome the potions without an immunity was when they experienced such extreme mental trauma that they couldn't completely comprehend reality, when they didn't know where they were and the feelings from their deepest traumas threatened their sanity.

Severus wanted to cry his throat raw at the thought of an _eleven-year-old _being abused so badly that he couldn't maintain his sanity. It was a sign of madness, too, that the boy could so easily feign stability when with his friends. He was dissociating his agony so that when it bubbled to the surface it came all at once, like a second tormenter — it was self-torment, more than anything.

Eventually, Severus tore his eyes away from his charge and went to secure the area. They were in the magically hidden Epping Forest, right beside London. As an uninhabited and magically shrouded area, it seemed to Severus the best place for fugitives to hide. The leaves had already turned for autumn, however, and winter would arrive soon. Neither of them had anywhere to go, meaning that they would have to gather supplies in London to survive winter in the forest. But Severus could not access his funds without Dumbledore's knowledge.

_I can't do this._

Severus remembered writhing on the headmaster's desk, closing his eyes and whimpering like he enjoyed it and promising himself to endure. Despite his promises, Dumbledore got to him, and he began to perceive every advance as overtly sexual. Whenever Potter and Black cornered him, his rational mind fled and he expected them to touch him, so he fought back with all the vehemence he could muster. When they had actually prepared to strip him, he had lashed out even more fiercely, driving Lilly away and sealing his fate. He was so shaken afterward that he stayed under the tree with his legs tucked against his chest defensively until Hagrid found him after nightfall.

The groundskeeper had crooned at him like he did for the feral dogs he tended to collect, coaxing him to stand and pull his clothes back on. The man's gentleness had been like a beacon to him, and he confessed part of the story, how they'd assaulted him and he'd feared how much further they would take it. He started choking on his tears, and his nose had run as he sat there and wailed out his fear. He didn't get the comfort he wanted, though. Hagrid was clearly disturbed by his hysterics, and sat wringing his hands until Severus's sobs faded. Severus had lost it then, screaming at the giant that just because he was a Slytherin didn't mean that he didn't deserve some kindness.

Hagrid had guided him to Dumbledore, who of course did nothing. Even years later, Severus couldn't meet the groundskeeper's eyes.

Now in the man's place, Severus understood a little better what had happened that night. It was bad to touch abused animals, as it could traumatize them further; Harry's jumpiness had reminded him of that. The half-giant had probably wanted to pet him the way he pet animals, but hadn't wanted to frighten him any further. He had been overwhelmed by the extremity of Severus's fit, and had brought him to someone who he thought could help him better.

Just like Severus wished he could do with Harry_._ The bruises and whip scars across the boy's back swam in his vision, omnipresent reminders of his failure. It had been so easy to turn his anger on Harry, to remember the humiliation Potter had given him and attribute it to the son. What could he possibly do to make it up to him?

"_I'm _the adult now." Severus whispered, as if hearing the words aloud would reinforce his will. "The boy needs me, and I mustn't fail him again._"_

It was too late for Severus, but not for Harry. There had to be a way to bring him back from the ledge of sanity. Though they had only just found each other, Severus felt that his world couldn't possibly keep going without Harry safe within it.

He pointed his wand at the nearest rowan tree. If they were staying here, they would not be without defenses. "_Cave Inimicum."_

He prided himself on his knowledge not just of spells, but also of effortless ways to enhance the power of those spells. Casting a spell to ward off enemies was good, but casting it on a rowan tree, which has natural defensive properties, made the spell rebound through other rowans in the area, creating a wide defensive net around them for miles. Likewise, Severus knew about the protective properties of birch trees, which were more adaptable to repelling spells and wards. Severus was no master of wards, but he could cast very basic boundary wards to alert him when someone passed through them, and to repel dark creatures. He'd had so much control taken from him at Hogwarts that he'd done everything he could to strengthen his magic. Severus wove disillusionment charms into the wards so that if anyone happened to enter this specific part of the forest, they wouldn't see the faint blue residue of the wards stretched among the trees.

Returning to Harry's side, Severus spelled a deep pit into the ground, transfigured the surrounding leaves into stones around the edge, and summoned a hot, smokeless blue fire that would keep burning without kindling. He could keep them warm, at least.

The heat of the fire near him roused Harry, who sat up slowly, disoriented. Severus watched as he took in the blue glow of the fire and surreptitiously examined his surroundings before dropping his eyes back to his lap.

The whole situation was uncomfortably reminiscent of his evening with Hagrid. Severus cleared his throat, drawing the boy's gaze. Harry looked half asleep still, which might be for the best while they had this conversation. "We're going to need supplies." Severus informed him.

Harry blinked a few times. "Are we staying here then, sir?"

"Unless you have any better ideas."

"No sir." Harry paused again, averting his gaze. Then, hesitantly "…you don't have a home either, sir?"

"No, I live at Hogwarts." Severus told him, embarrassed. "He wants to keep an eye on me, I think." No need to say who he was. "I get rooms, food, and a small budget. He'd know if I tried to access it. I have a little saved up with me, but not much. You?"

"The Dursleys hate me." Severus knew as much from occlumency. "As for money, he's taken it all I'm afraid. I only have a bit for spending still in my trunk."

There was no need to ask how that had happened. Dumbledore had a way about him.

"Where are we, if I may ask, sir?" Harry murmured softly after another long pause. "I mean… if that's okay."

"Harry." Severus said sharply. The boy wanted permission to _ask a question._ "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to take away your freedom. If you wish to go seek refuge elsewhere, I'll make sure you get there, and I'll leave you alone. Understand? There's no need to treat me differently now."

Emerald eyes flared to life. "You _saved _me, sir. You abandoned your home, your only safety, to get me away from him. You just sacrificed _everything _for me. So of course I owe you everything in return. I don't…mean to leave you, unless you wish me to. There's no way I can ever make this up to you. But, if you're anything like me, sir…" he trailed off.

"If I'm anything like you…?" Severus prompted cautiously, something warm building in his chest at the thought of those fierce eyes lighting up in _his _defense, even if it was the borderline insanity impassioning him.

Color bloomed across the boy's face, lighting him as if with spell fire. "Then, well, being together is something, isn't it? Not being alone?" He hugged one knee against his chest, bracing himself for rejection.

Severus sighed and approached him before he stroked his cheek. Harry froze, afraid, Severus presumed, that movement would turn the gentle touch into a violent one. The man slipped to the ground and pulled his student against him, draping his arms over his chest. Nice and gently was best, it seemed, when the boy didn't pull away as he had earlier.

"If I were younger," he confessed into the nape of the boy's neck, "I wouldn't have hesitated to kiss your pain away." A shiver followed the kiss he pressed to the neck, and Severus wondered if the boy was hypersensitive after his time with Dumbledore. One of Severus's hands slid up to press against Harry's forehead, playing with his hair the way his mother had sometimes done for him as a child.

It was good that Harry wasn't flinching away from the contact. Touch would help ground the child in reality, and though it was dangerous to fondle a trauma victim, Severus didn't know anything that would protect his sanity as well as touch.

His hand wandering, Severus realized with alarm that the blanket tied at the waist was the boy's only clothing, and cursed himself. He knew better than anyone how strenuous nudity was when associated with sex. What had he been thinking, leaving the boy so exposed? No wonder he had suffered such a panic attack! The boy had probably been waiting to be violated this whole time.

Severus wanted to pull back then, to take his hands off of the terrified child in his arms and assure him that he would never ever harm him like that, but to pull away after touching him would just make the touch seem even more sexual. He'd even kissed him! He had meant it to be a comfort, but it had probably seemed more of a promise of things to come.

"Relax." He implored, remembering the boy's words. He wanted comfort too. "I'm with you."

The only thing Severus could do next was hope that a longer embrace would be comforting. It was unlikely, though; he'd already messed things up too much.

It was nice to hold the firm body in his arms, and part of Severus wished that the boy would squirm against him instead of lying frozen. The thought sickened him, and he struggled yet again not to release the warm body. He was worse than scum for such lust. How could he be attracted to the boy? Sure, the ridge of the neck by his mouth was smooth and dusted with hair — clearly formed for a tongue to trace through it. But it wasn't made for Severus.

"We're in Epping Forest, just outside of London." He murmured, almost tasting the sweet skin beside his mouth. "We'll be here for a long time together, so you'd better rest up now."

He had absconded with Harry, and Dumbledore would chase them. He would want to violate Harry again, no doubt attracted by the honey that was this boy's scent. But he was Severus's now, to guide and protect for as long as they managed to live. The Slytherin would take piece of mind from Dumbledore by keeping him away from Harry, just as Dumbledore had stolen his peace so long ago. He'd do his best to keep sinister forces away from the boy, as nobody had done for him, even if it meant fighting his own perverse urges to do so.

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Severus has almost as many issues as Harry, and as much stubbornness. They're both so self-restrained that they make an interesting pair.

Stay tuned. And please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	4. Their Training: Harry

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Despite his best intentions, Harry found it difficult to deal with Snape when the man was so inconsistent.

Chapter 4: Their Training

They awoke the next morning no less terrified than they had been when they fell asleep. Harry woke first, and was startled to find himself in his professor's arms.

How could he have possibly let his guard down while the man was clutching him? He'd even confessed that he wanted to kiss Harry. "If I were younger, I would have kissed away your pain." Or something like that.

It sounded like the professor was still playing his "helping Harry" game. He spoke like he had no intention of using him, but then he'd pressed their bodies together and kissed his neck, the arm around his waist just short of gripping his butt.

The man had every right to use Harry if he wanted to. He'd saved him, after all. And the professor was at least pretending to care about his well-being, too. Even if it meant living on the run, as long as Snape kept playing this game, Harry was safer than he had been with Dumbledore.

He turned back into Snape's chest so that the man would think him fooled and compliant. As if sensing the mental acquiescence, Snape shifted, rising swiftly into a sitting position and examining his surroundings in the manner of a war veteran. Apparently sensing that they were safe, he shifted his eyes down to Harry, who was left lying on the hard ground, feeling very much like a trollop. Even so, it was reassuring to see that Snape was looking out for the enemy.

His alertness brought new questions to mind, however. Just how safe were they? The forest around them was glistening with morning dew and, alongside the chirping of birds, seemed designed to be peaceful. Hogwarts was like that too. Looking peaceful just made things more dangerous, and Harry wondered if Snape would call the other death eaters, or if he would keep Harry completely to himself.

"What now?" Harry whispered to himself, not intending for Snape to hear him. But Snape always heard. His professor pulled him up from the ground and into his arms, holding him as if it were completely normal for him to do so.

"We'll have to find some way to survive, maybe set up a semi-permanent portkey to some Wizarding community. I might be able to disguise myself and find work. If not, we may need to steal." Harry made a small noise at the back of his throat. "What? Gryffindor morals won't let you steal to survive?"

"No!" Harry rushed to assure the man. Then, quieter, he explained. "No. But, is it safe to go to a community just like that? Won't he be after us?"

"As I said, I'll use a disguise. You can do the same. It's quite easy, really." Snape misunderstood.

"E-even if we're disguised, can't he find us? Dumbledore is strong." Harry pulled his arms around his chest, and then there were four arms around him.

Harry could feel Snape shake his head. "It's impossible to monitor apparition, unless the wizard is underage or on a watch list, which I assure you I am not. The only ways _anyone _will find us now are if we reveal ourselves, which would be foolhardy, or if you use magic with this underage wand of yours." Snape plucked the wand from Harry's pocket and turned it around thoughtfully.

"So I can't use magic anymore?"

"You'll just have to learn how to get by without a wand." The man informed him.

Even magic, the one thing that was good about the wizarding world, was being taken from him. Harry sensed that he was trembling, but from outside of his body, as though someone had just doused him with cold water and he couldn't feel his limbs. Snape pressed a hand to his charge's forehead, still holding Harry's wand in his other hand.

"Calm down." He murmured, pressing his lips to the back of Harry's head. Why did Snape have to keep _touching _him? Harry felt pinned between Snape's hand and lips. "I did not mean to suggest that you can't do magic, just that you'll need to learn to do it without your wand."

Wandless magic like Dumbledore and Voldemort used? "You're capable of it." Snape assured him, lips still touching Harry's head.

"You would teach me how to do that?" Harry held his breath, waiting for Snape's caress to melt into something more sinister.

Snape let go of him. "Naturally. Though you already know how." Harry doubted that. "The art of wandless magic is similar to accidental magic. Do you remember getting extremely angry? So angry that it felt like your magic was rushing from your belly and seeping into every crevice of your body, down to the pores in your skin? And then, when you couldn't hold your breath any longer, you took in just the slightest sip of air, and it came rushing out of you with all the force of an…" Snape's elegant voice trailed off, and he studied Harry thoughtfully.

"Sir?" The sixth year wondered.

"Has Dumbledore ever 'punished' you without violence?" Snape asked softly.

"Yes sir." The thought of it drained the strength from his body. "He…well, he —"

"Withheld orgasm, yes?" Harry nodded, his face unbearably hot. Snape put a hand on his knee, and Harry prayed that it wouldn't slide any further up his leg. "Wandless magic is far more powerful than magic with a wand, and even more powerful than strategic magic. It is also very dangerous to learn, because it requires such a concentration of powerful emotion for even the most basic spells that you risk losing control of yourself every time you use it. In terms of how it affects your body, it is very much like an orgasm after being held back for hours. If you lose control — and you will, many times before you master it — you risk all of your magic flooding out of you, putting far too much power into the spell, and being physically exhausted until your magic returns. Very few wizards bother to endure the training to reap the results."

There was a double meaning in Snape's words: very few wizards bothered to learn. Not Snape. And not Harry. They had so little to lose that giving up control to their magic and passing out a few times was a tiny cost in the long run.

"Being used to that kind of intensity will only help you learn it faster. To begin, try lumos."

And so began the first of many lessons in wandless magic. They did nothing but practice magic for the next few days, until the first real problem occurred. Harry was still trying to master lumos, and had created light once or twice, though not to Snape's satisfaction. Working on such a simple spell for so long was starting to wear on Harry's nerves, and he found himself closer to losing control every time he was told to do it again. Only his fear that the man would drop the role of rescuer kept him from releasing that anger, though he was starting to suspect that Snape was provoking him on purpose. Finally, when he had managed to conjure light several times in a row, and the man was still dissatisfied, he allowed himself to glare.

Snape's eyes seemed to sharpen as they caught his, and a satisfied smile slid onto his face. "What's wrong, Potter? Frustrated that you can't even do this right? It's not all that surprising, really."

"I'm doing it fine!" Harry snarled, somewhere between anger and despair. He knew Snape hated him, and would punish him as soon as he lashed out, and he didn't mean to be difficult. But the man had been faking kindness until now, and seeing him revert back to his taunting was disheartening, to say the least. Apparently Harry's submissiveness wasn't as effective as he had hoped. His blood rushed to his ears, and he clenched shaky fists against his legs in an effort to hold back. His whole body was humming with the effort, and even his toes were digging holes in the bottoms of his shoes.

"Prove it, then." Snape answered him calmly, lifting an eyebrow. If the man wanted light, then _fine, _damnit, Harry would give him light.

"Lumos!" he spat, breathing out excess air in his frustration at having to do this _yet_ _again. _

As if the exhaled air was his magic, a pulsing ball of blue light began to grow right below his mouth. It matched the blue glow of the flames Snape kept burning even in the middle of the day, and it just kept growing. Harry watched Snape's face as the light formed, and was confused to find that the man's satisfied smirk had only deepened.

"That, Potter, is wandless magic." Snape told him smugly as he watched the ball of light grow to the size of his student's head. "You may want to stop before you use all of your magic, however."

"Right," Harry responded, heart still thudding painfully against his ribcage. But he couldn't calm down; the relief at finally releasing his anger was too strong, and he felt his legs getting weak underneath him.

Snape moved over to him when the light kept building, wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulders and pulling him into his chest in case he fell. "Relax." The man instructed.

"That's the problem." Harry groaned, feeling the strength flood from his body. "I can't stop relaxing." His vision was getting fuzzy, and he finally gave in to the weakness and slumped in his professor's arms.

"Just remember how you feel right now, Potter. Maybe next time we can do this without exhausting you."

That was the last thing Harry heard before everything turned black.

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4/19 Updated a bit, but there's not much I can add to this chapter. I've realized that they're painfully short, and I've fixed what I could, but there's such a lack of action here that I can't do much more than this for the time being. I'm definitely going to add more action, starting with ch. 8 or 9, and I can only apologize for how long it took me. Good stories require plot in addition to emotion, and I've been lacking in that department. Nevertheless, if you stick with me, I'll see what I can do about sprucing up the story.

Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	5. Their Fears: Snape

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **It wasn't just lust anymore, but something more sinister. Severus was afraid of the demon in his mind, and he would drown himself in wine and water until it went away.

Chapter 5: Their Fears

While Harry was unconscious, Severus went to get supplies. He spent nearly all of the money he had on him to buy food for them, and decided to indulge his last few galleons on some wine, which he knew he would be grateful for when the boy woke up.

Personality-wise, the child was a mess. He knew from experience that the boy's apparent submission, his tolerance of Severus's touches, came from the mental trauma he suffered at Dumbledore's hands. He knew that Harry's fire was his natural personality, though it would only come out when he was extremely frustrated. It was that fire he needed to harness to master wandless magic.

Taunting him was an unkind tactic, but it was the only thing he'd found that could bring out the boy's emotions on a regular basis. It was important to his sanity to keep him connected to that rage, so that he released it in a series of controlled explosions instead of all at once.

Arriving back at the camp, Severus transfigured himself a chair out of a nearby stone and sat down heavily. The boy was still asleep, hopefully so deeply drained of his magic that he would be dreamless. Severus needed to think. He knew his touches were bad for both of them, that he was sending his student mixed signals that would only put him on edge. He could not deny his attraction to Harry either, though he would never act on it. It was their mutual suffering that was causing it.

Harry turned onto his side, exhaling as he did so, and Severus stopped contemplating to watch him. It wasn't all bad. At least he would learn that Severus had no intention of hurting him or taking advantage of him. It was just that, in freeing Harry from Dumbledore, Severus was liberating himself from the man's constant weight on his mind. He had been living under that shadow for so long that he almost couldn't believe he was free. And so he touched Harry, to remind himself that the boy was actually there, safe.

The boy finally woke up around midday, blinking up at Severus like a kitten. Backed by the green of the forest, his large eyes were more vibrant than ever, at least until he placed his glasses back over his nose. The were garrish things, black and bulky, and far too big for him. They brought attention to how small he was, especially when Potter had to push them back up after they slid down his skinny nose; they were the perfect way to hide his true nature, and distracted from his eyes almost completely.

"Sir?" The boy asked weakly, shrinking under Severus's gaze.

"You likely won't be able to move for a while." He told the boy. "Do you remember the feel of your magic?"

Harry nodded, or at least he tried to. In his weakened state, it was more like a dog lolling his head to the side as he lazed about in the sun. "It felt like you said, sir. Like a punishment."

"Potter, you know that you'll never have to endure 'punishment' again, right?" Severus questioned, suddenly anxious that the boy feared him.

"So you say sir." Harry answered vaguely. "I think I can do that again though. Channel that much power, I mean. How do you do it without losing control?"

Wisely ignoring the change of subject, Severus answered. "You practice, much like when learning the patronus charm. At first, you need to remember the anger to access your magic. The more you do it, the more you start to see those memories as things of the past, and the faster you can access our strength. Eventually, you don't even need to think of the memories, and you can just summon up the emotion and squeeze it into your spells without thinking about it. That's how the patronus is for you now, no?"

"That's right." Potter whispered, and Severus was once again surprised. That the boy could still summon a patronus so easily was astonishing, considering the severity of the headmaster's abuse. He hadn't thought about until now, but Potter must really have phenomenal control over his own mind. It explained how he deceived everyone about his mental state so easily.

"Tell me, Potter. What do you want to do with your life?"

Judging by the deer-in-the-headlinghts expression he received in response to the question, the boy's head would have probably been spinning if he wasn't so tired. "I was going to do whatever the headmaster asked of me, I think." He finally responded.

The honesty of his answer was unexpected. "And what do you want to do, now that you're free?"

"Free, sir? We'll never be free of him, not while he's alive. He's got too much power."

"That's not true!" Severus snarled. Didn't the boy understand? Severus had rescued him, and he was going to see him happy.

Wearily, Harry sighed. "What do we do then, sir? He'll certainly have the whole world searching for us."

"We fight." Severus answered, and his words seemed to resound throughout the empty clearing.

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It was the wine that saw him through the next few weeks, Severus was sure. Harry had taken to wandless magic like a rabbit to procreating, and was almost through the process of remastering all of his school spells, classroom taught and otherwise. He had been at it with such drive that, without Severus there, he would never have stopped to eat or rest. It was exhausting just to watch, so Severus had taken to only paying enough attention to make sure everything was going well, and focused on planning what they would do from there on out.

It was good timing, as they were also running low on supplies, and would need to start stealing to survive. The trees had started shedding leaves, and already, the half-bare branches warned of the coming winter. It would be simple enough to reinforce the clearing with warming charms and snow-repelling potions, though he would need to find some way to get the proper ingredients. Stealing food from muggles was easy, but robbing wizards was another matter entirely.

Harry was asleep now; a combination of his own exhaustion and Severus's urging had convinced him to stop for the day. The dark-haired man took a swig of wine from his supply, not letting even one red drop escape his lips. He had shared some of the liquid with Harry after he woke from a nightmare, though not enough to get him drunk. The boy generally slept quietly, and was only forced awake, pale and shuddering, when the dark lord was acting up.

Just the thought of that monster made his arm burn, and Severus gripped the spot where his dark mark lay, wincing. He knew that Dumbledore had told the ministry that Severus kidnapped Potter, likely so that he could return the boy to his abuse once he found them, which Severus was determined would never happen. The thought made his arm burn harder, and Severus drank more wine.

Harry hadn't mentioned his allegiance to the dark lord since the night of their escape, but Severus was sure he hadn't forgotten. He saw it most clearly when the boy was unsettled by a noise in the forest and jerked, looking around with hollow eyes and bracing himself with his fist clenched as though it held his wand. That was how Harry prepared for battle, for death eaters to jump out of the shadows and curse him with deadly flashes of light or tie him to a stone and take his blood from him.

When Harry was thinking about the headmaster, he braced himself for assault by letting his wand arm go slack, willing to accept any pain given to him. At times like that, Severus always watched Harry with wary eyes, tailing him as he slowly recovered himself and walked about the camp, as if offering himself up for punishment. He tried his best to keep his hands to himself when Harry was remembering Dumbledore, so that he wouldn't have to see the boy flinch away from him with terror in his eyes the way he had the first time it happened.

Being the cause of his fear hurt Severus more than anything.

Memories of the headmaster had flooded him since he saved the boy — memories of hands touching every part of him, of kneeling submissively and awaiting commands. That final memory was easy to confuse with more recent memories of the dark lord, his garbling voice a promise of agony to come. While watching Harry, Severus sometimes got lost in a memory and came up not knowing how long he'd been gone for or whether he was with his father or Dumbledore.

Severus had begun to fear that he was as mad as Harry. The closer he got to the boy, the stronger the urge to touch him became. He often had his hands or his lips against the child's skin before he realized what he was doing. Harry always trembled but never struggled, the same way he did when remembering Dumbledore, and Severus began to wish that the boy _would _flinch away and prepare to fight back, to show whatever evil was taking over his mind that he would not let it have him.

Severus's skin began to crawl, and the dark silhouettes of the trees broke apart as his vision blurred. How much wine had he had? Severus swished the bottle and realized that it was almost empty. There wasn't enough left to be worth saving, so Severus pressed the open bottle to his lips and poured the last bit of wine down his throat.

His control over his body diminishing, Severus felt himself growing aroused. He growled at himself, angry that proximity to Harry always roused the beast in his head. Stumbling to his feet, the ex-professor, or death eater, or whatever-he-was trudged into the trees where he had set up a well of sorts for them to bathe in. The water was under a purifying spell, and it was comforting to know that it was perfectly sanitary as he thrust his head into the freezing well. He held himself there until he couldn't hold his breath any longer, and came up gasping.

At least he didn't have to worry about being aroused any longer, Severus mused as the buzzing evil in his mind retreated into the background. His damp hair was hanging down the sides of his face, but it didn't feel clean. The cold locks of hair against the side of his face felt greasier than ever, though a deep part of him knew that his hair was not very greasy at all.

He cast a heating charm on the water and watched until it began to steam just slightly before deciding it was hot enough. If whatever was driving him to desire Harry disliked water, then he would give it more than it could handle. Severus dunked his head back into the water and began to scrub, enjoying the blissful silence of the water in his ears that drowned out all thoughts of anyone but himself.

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	6. Their Suspicion: Neville

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Neville got broody without anyone to talk to. Then the twins confronted him, and the things he didn't understand began to make a little more sense.

Chapter 6: Their Suspicion

Winter melted into the warmth of Spring, but Neville still couldn't shed any light on the frigid cast of life without Harry Potter. Without his hero, Neville fell back into the slump of his prepubescent years, wandering through empty hallways full of schoolmates who only bothered with him if they needed an extra vote to settle an argument.

Most recently, he had taken to sitting on the low stone bench behind the greenhouses with his textbooks spread out in front of him until the sun dropped out of the sky. It was a ruse, mostly; he wanted to feel that his life meant _something, _to reject the ugly truths that Harry's escape had revealed. But the truth loomed over him in the near-permanent silence of his new life, and every chance for a friendship not taken because of fear left him a little surer of his failings.

Ever since the end of first year, when Dumbledore had awarded him the winning points for Gryffindor, Neville had thought his life was going uphill. It had been the first time that he had defied somebody whose opinion mattered to him, and also the first time that someone recognized him for any sort of accomplishment. And as if they could sense the internal dominoes that that one event set in motion, the other Gryffindors had begun to accept him.

He couldn't say that he had any really close friends, but he _finally _had people who would stop to chat with him in a hallway, or who would ask his opinion about quiddich or girls instead of using him as an example for mockery. And it felt wonderful.

Neville knew about Harry's accomplishments, his slaying of the basilisk and his logic-defying escape from Voldemort at the end of the fourth year, and though he was separate from those achievements, somehow, seeing Harry survive such misfortune and walk around school every day as if the world were normal gave him hope.

And that hope squeezed itself to a tiny ball and hid deep within him when he found Harry in the common room. The hero's lively, quirky face had been pinched into something meek and frightened, and Harry had refused even to meet his eyes. The watercolor of bruising and red skin had told him the true story, however, and Neville understood that someone had been hurting Harry. Someone had been hurting Harry for a long time, and he had been ignorant.

Rage festered inside of him even now, just thinking about the way that blanket had hung off his otherwise bare body and stolen from his yearmate the layer of strength he had cast over himself. Neville was no fool; he knew that Harry had had a crappy life, one much worse than Neville's incompetent childhood. Knowing that was what had given him hope, even if Harry was only pretending to be unaffected. The visions of Voldemort that their whole dorm woke to in the night told him how deeply his closest friend was traumatized, but as long as Harry could get up in the morning and pretend to be alright, Neville could as well. Apparently, his suffering had finally blown through his shell.

Neville trudged to the Great Hall with his shoulders slumped, not bothering to watch where he was going. Either people would get out of his way or they wouldn't, and nobody would much care which it was. He passed the hallway that Harry and Snape had escaped through, remembering as if it were yesterday Harry's weary gratitude for his help. Truly, there was no reason for him to be grateful. Neville was made to be a tool, whether to his family or to the few people who acknowledged him, and to be used for what little he could accomplish.

Passing through the portal to the Hall, Neville paused for a moment to look at the lay of the land. Each house table was packed with students, each thrumming with its own sort of life. The Hufflepuffs were snickering and grinning at each other, but their rounded, defensive little backs told a different story about their place in the school. The Ravenclaws were more group-oriented, with small circles of friends talking quietly to each other, and many individuals peering at a heavy textbook or two while eating absentmindedly. The Slytherins were poised, the rows of straight-backed students on each side of the table forming a spiky wall like that of a fortress, designed to impale any enemy that approached. They constantly glanced at the other tables, gathering information most would say, but probably secretly longing for alliances as well.

Neville approached the boisterous Gryffindor table, a disorderly mess of students reaching for food and playing pranks and arguing or bragging. On the end of the bench, eating quietly and with subdued concern were Ron and Hermione. Neville sat near them, but did not speak. The Gryffindors had learned that they should generally leave the two alone when they were like this. It was good to see that someone other than he was still thinking about Harry, and the sight made him reconsider his decision not to tell them about Harry's escape.

Dumbledore had told the world that Snape abducted Harry, and the ministry was "searching madly to recover him." Recover. As if he were an object that they sought to have returned to them. Dumbledore's lie disconcerted Neville, because he had seen the marks on Harry's body and the seriousness in Snape's eyes, and he was absolutely sure that the professor was helping the hero, not abducting him. How could he tell Harry's friends, though? Who would believe him, the boy who nobody acknowledged? It was more likely that the two of them would run to Dumbledore to share the information, noble in their quest to help their friend. For some reason, Neville didn't want that.

Perhaps it was because Harry had been so frightened that Neville was determined not to share those details. Even surrounded by friends in the safest place in the world, Harry had been reduced to that creature of nerves that Neville barely recognized, as if he had taken all of his fear and made it physical, the way Neville used to to a lesser degree. It was more serious than just violence, he knew, recognizing the signs of mental trauma he had seen during the escape. Harry needed someone to help fix him. Harry needed Snape to fix him, and Neville prayed to Merlin that it was possible.

After a small meal, Neville rose to his feet and glanced one last time at Ron and Hermione. They were whispering quietly to each other, having already finished their food, and looked the same as they always had when conspiring with Harry, determined and angry, but lacking the sparks of excitement that they once had.

Fingers patted his shoulder and Neville jumped, having grown accustomed to not being touched, and turned to see who it was. The Weasley twins were standing behind him, their outward air of cheerful mischief doing nothing to hide the more sinister intentions darkening their brows. One of them jerked his chin at the door, Fred probably, and Neville nodded hesitantly before the three of them walked out of the room.

The twins had seemed the same as ever, playing pranks on the school and trying to liven the atmosphere to no avail. Usually, their mischief just made people angry. Their hair had grown longer over the course of the year, as they still insisted on wearing it in the same style, and it fell now to their shoulders, reminding Neville eerily of Snape. Their silent intimidation was also quite Snape-like, and Neville wondered whether they were trying to replace him or to distort his image now that the man had left.

More than likely, they didn't notice the similarities themselves. The older boys led him away from the crowd of students lingering outside the Hall, drawing attention as they pushed determinedly through the groups in their way. It was the first time anyone had stared at him in a while, and Neville stood straighter, fixing his gaze firmly ahead as his grandmother had taught him to do when under scrutiny, ignoring the slightly heavier thumping in his chest.

A few turns later, they stopped in one of the school's many unused hallways, which glistened as spotlessly as any other hallway in the castle. The classroom doors were made of a dark, older wood like that of the Great Hall, as if they were all magical rooms of their own. The twins had no sense of the sacredness of the area, however, and promptly shoved open a door at the end of the hallway and slipped inside it. The room was dark when they stepped into it, but lit up magically as soon as it sensed wizards in the room.

"Sit, Neville." One of the twins, probably George, told him as he took a seat on the top of a desk, using the chair as a footrest. Neville hesitated for a moment, until he felt a flash of anger from the boy, and clumsily maneuvered himself into one of the desk chairs. He instantly regretted his choice, as he was directly facing the twins, who were both taller than him and sitting higher. Neville resisted the urge to slump in his chair, and instead averted his eyes and focused on his hands, trying not to bury his face in them with fear.

"Now, Ron and Hermione may be too distracted to notice how you've been acting, but we're definitely not." One said.

"You've stopped talking to people, stopped making eye contact with them, as if you have something to be afraid of."

"And this started when Harry left, so naturally we were suspicious."

"So we did a little investigating, talked to Peeves, obliging poltergeist that he is, and he told us that he hasn't done anything to you since the beginning of the year."

"Interesting, isn't it? Peeves always takes credit for his pranks, but he denies making you run wailing past the Great Hall on the day that Snape ran off with Harry."

"This got us to wondering, what really happened that made you do that? What was it you saw that scared you so badly?"

"So badly, in fact, that you've stopped talking to your friends in case they ask you about it."

They paused, glancing at each other, then asked in unison: "Care to share?"

And for a moment Neville was back in his uncle's study, being scolded for being anti-social, when in reality he had just been waiting for the other children at the park to acknowledge him. It was the easiest thing to fixate on, and Neville didn't really want to get into the other line of questioning.

"I've not been acting any differently." Neville insisted, still not strong enough to lift his head. "I've always acted this way."

"Fred, I think he's serious." George told his twin, "He's been isolating himself, slinking through the halls with an impressively angst-ful air, and sighing dramatically when he thinks nobody's around, and he thinks nothing has changed."

"How appalling!" Fred declared in a mock-serious voice, but with a genuinely concerned expression that Neville missed. "Don't you think Ron or Ginny or little Luna would be sad to hear how little he thinks of their friendship?"

Neville didn't appreciate the mockery. He was fond of all three of the people Fred mentioned, as they all deigned to talk to him when he was around, but they had certainly never done more than talk with him; they had never comforted him or sought him out for company. Though he wished otherwise, that wasn't friendship. It was how one treated acquaintances.

When Neville didn't answer, the twins focused on their other questions, not willing to drop the subject. "Why, Fred, I think Neville is avoiding our question. I wonder why that is?"

"We've clearly hit the nail on the head, George. I think whatever he saw that day must be related to Harry and Snape."

"Snape did always scare him, after all. So, Neville, why don't you tell us just what you're keeping from everybody?"

"Harry is like a little brother to us, after all. We wouldn't want to have to drag you to our dear old headmaster to make you talk, would we?"

And all of Neville's worries came crashing back down on him and flooded his mind. He couldn't function until the tide calmed again, and he realized that he absolutely could not trust Dumbledore. The man had lied to the world about Harry instead of just saying he didn't know what happened, so either he was willing to make a very big assumption about Harry and Snape's disappearance, or he knew more than he let on.

"Don't tell Dumbledore." Neville warned, finally lifting his head before he could think better of it.

"Why?"

Neville took a deep breath as the chain of events around their disappearance finally completed itself in his mind. "Because Dumbledore is the reason Harry ran away."

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I'm not sure chronologically how old the twins are supposed to be, so I'm just going to call them 17 for now. Also, I think I just developed a writer crush on Neville.

I've realized that I can't inspire myself to write when I don't have time to read, and because I had time to read the first 25 pages of Lolita last night, I was inspired. Expect some eerie and poetic prose about pedophiles soon!

Reviews are also inspiring, so please leave even a tiny comment for me!


	7. Their Crimes: Snape

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Severus is ready when they run into trouble in Knockturn Alley.

Chapter 7: Their Crimes

It was with selfishness that Severus drove Harry to achieve. The tiny, tiny teenager should have been incapable of the things Severus provoked him into doing, with cruel words and meaningless insults that clearly stung the boy nevertheless, but all for the best. Severus had lived through his past by learning to be strong, and now it was Harry's turn to do the same.

His student awoke in the morning to a gentle alarm spell, but the way he jerked up was in no way gentle. The moment the alarm sounded, the upper half of his body bent upward with such force that it was surprising when his bones didn't snap from the momentum. Harry's eyelids would flutter three times, or four if the previous day had been especially tiring, and the ever-deepening pits around his eyes wrinkled briefly as he squinted in the early morning light. He pressed his hands to the ground beside him and pushed himself up as if his legs were not steady enough to be trusted, which they always were. It was actually remarkable how steady the boy was on his feet, considering his long limbs, which were without a doubt of an unusual proportion to his small body.

And then those glowing eyes, the only permanently bright feature Harry possessed, would seek him out. And oh, how Severus trembled every time they fell upon him. There was such absolute obedience in those eyes that he had no doubt that the boy would drink poison if Severus demanded it of him. The recklessness inherent in Harry's obedience was sickening. He had always mocked the child for his willingness to throw himself into danger for the sake of his disgustingly-encouraged Gryffindor ideals, but this recklessness was different from the usual Gryffindor trademark; this was not the recklessness of an adventurer leaving home with a spark in his eyes, but rather that of a dying innocent whose only wish was that his last moments might matter to someone.

A better person than Severus might see those eyes and decide to drive the torment out of them with hugs and kindness, but Severus did no such thing. He knew, because he had been there, that Harry wanted no such thing. The only thing that could possibly save them was the ability to live, and it was that which he devoted his days to teaching Harry. He did his best to keep the boy from wallowing in his pain, beckoning him over to help prepare breakfast after he woke, and, while they ate, explaining the theory of whatever lesson he would be teaching that day. Then they launched into lessons, both ignoring the cracked lips and wet breathing that came from living under heating and snow-repelling charms for too long, lasting even after Spring had blossomed.

And despite it all, the boy was beautiful, more desirable than he had ever been when he feigned strength. In a dark, shameful part of Severus's heart, he understood why Dumbledore had hurt Harry in addition to raping him; the boy was most beautiful when he was in pain. The thought brought bile to his throat like the splatter of grease on a fire, and he was more aware than ever of his stomach's unhealthy churning, a side effect of living off of stolen fruit, eggs, and not much else. Harry never once complained about the lack of nourishment, adjusting to it faster than Severus did. Silently, Severus acknowledged that the boy was likely not eating correctly even while at school. The hormonal ups and downs of life with Dumbledore would make most men too weary to stomach food at all, however, so Severus had no right to criticize him for it.

Even when 'lunchtime' came around, Severus refused to leave Harry alone with his thoughts. He lectured him on history, or some other theories that they would likely never get around to practicing. It was mostly just talk to ward off silence, or perhaps to distract them from the inadequacy of their meal. But Harry listened, eyes blank, and when Severus quizzed him over dinner, the boy remembered everything he had said. Though they had avoided talking about anything personal since their first week together, ignoring Severus's almost-confession and the hopelessness of any kind of future, Severus had eventually given in and asked about his curious memory.

"I guess there's nothing to do but listen, sir. I've got nothing worth thinking about, so I just shut off everything else and pay attention to what you're telling me." His translucent, tight-skinned fingers had been curled around a cup of warm water, the closest they could come to tea, and he had stared into it as vacantly as he did into Severus when absorbing his lessons.

Following the boy's self-professed mastery of clearing his mind, Severus resumed teaching him occlumency. No matter how many flashes of a magical whip or thrusts of agony they experienced during the joining of their minds, Harry never once showed any emotion. Even when Severus tugged away first, eyes blurring with the pain of their pasts, and staggered into nearby trees for balance, green eyes continued to follow him like sponges waiting for the next penetration. Somehow, they progressed, and made it into Summer without suffocating. It was then that Neville found them.

They had needed more food, but were also short on healing herbs for training injuries, so they decided to visit Knockturn alley. The alley was relatively safe during the day, when even daring Hogwarts students might be found wandering the streets. It had a bad reputation because lowlifes gathered in it, but in reality those lowlives rarely committed any crimes in the area. There would be no purpose for it. Death eaters, dark arts practitioners, deviant purebloods, illegal immigrants, and magical creatures had an unspoken agreement to leave each other alone; the biggest criminals were smugglers, pickpockets, and prostitutes.

The alley was older than Diagon Alley, as evidenced by the stone-age style buildings with lighter patches marking more recent repairs. It was this architecture, used in modern times only by purebloods, that made people suspicious. As they passed under the faded archway leading into the alley, dejected salesmen slumped against nearby buildings looked up at them. They were hawkers, meant to draw in naive visitors and either overcharge or rob them. Harry was hidden under his invisibility cloak, so they only saw Severus, a tall man wearing a hooded cloak with spells to hide his face. They left him alone.

Severus walked quietly down one side of the alley, examining the apothecaries' outside stands for defense spells and quality. The first three apothecaries might as well have been the same store; each had two racks outside full of weak herbs spelled to look healthy. They also all had guards trying to look intimidating. It was more important for bad stores to have visible defenses, as they wouldn't want thieves to discover the true quality of their products until they had paid for them.

Knockturn was not a typical, flat alley, but rather bent slightly downhill until the center, where there was flat ground for about three stores before the street turned upward. It was on this flat area that he found high quality herbs, the type he could use, growing in pots along the windowsill. He slowed slightly as he passed the store to cast a detection charm, and felt Harry grip his sleeve in anticipation. There were mild alarm spells covering the area, but otherwise no defenses. Severus reached behind him, as if scratching his arm, and squeezed the hand attached to his robes.

He unweaved the spells on the plants as quickly as possible so that his standing in front of the store wasn't suspicious, tilting his head in a subtle nod as the final knot of magic around the pots untangled. Then came Harry's part: he pulled his fingers from his teacher's and grabbed the two center pots from the rack, tugging them under his cloak before scurrying faithfully back to Severus's side. Then something crashed into them behind. Severus stumbled forward as Harry fell against him, but managed to stay on his feet. The boy who had crashed into them tried to regain his balance with a tug on Severus's robes, but a yell from within the store startled him and pulled him back onto the ground.

A pot-bellied man ran at them with a wand in his fist, yelling for them to return his herbs. Severus looked down and, finding that Harry's cloak had slipped open when he fell and dropped the pots, jerked him up by the arm. All that mattered at that point was escaping, avoiding any recognition or suffering for their crimes. And still, Harry resisted his pull until he grabbed the pots in his free arm; only then did he flee down the street, feet pounding painfully against the ground. They could have apparated, but it was easy to trace travel from within the alley, and Severus didn't want to take that risk.

Harry had only slight trouble keeping up with the charge down the street as he clutched the pots against his chest like treasure, his rapid breathing sirens of his fear. Magic brushed by them just as they reached the archway and, glad their pursuer had bad aim, Severus pulled a startled Harry against him and apparated back to the forest. He landed smoothly, as usual, but Harry rolled forward rather spectacularly, doing a full somersault before landing on his back, one arm thrown to the side, the other trying to clutch the pots that tumbled to the ground and shattered.

Severus's immediate reaction was to fuss over the boy, but he would have hated that if he were Harry. He watched as Harry rocked from side to side before he straightened his arm, releasing both the pots and his breath simultaneously. Watery eyes searched the air until they fell upon Severus, not noticing his usual flinch at the sight. Harry grinned at him weakly, for the first time since they had run away together, and his whole face changed. His skin wrinkled around the corner of his lips and over his chin, shattering the unearthly smoothness that had overtaken his face until then. His eyelids drooped, as if released from an invisible casing, and Severus could easily picture him descending from an orgasm, his eager-to-please eyes the only part of him unchanged by intercourse.

Perhaps agony made him more beautiful, but even this uneven half-smile of his made him into a beacon of sensuality that even asexual beings could justify pursuing. Harry was one of those boys who, if seen at just the right moment, captured the lusts of men and women alike. His was a smile that turned people against themselves; even married adults and chaste teenagers would be forced to talk themselves into approaching him. So who was Severus to resist, when the boy was so clearly willing to surrender himself?

Just as Severus began moving forward, hypnotized by the buzzing of his mental demons, to give the boy what his body demanded, a heavy figure cracked into the air above them and dropped, like a boulder, onto Harry. Harry screamed the moment Neville Longbottom, of all people, hit the ground, and promptly fell unconscious.

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Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	8. Their Wounds: Neville

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary**: Harry was hurting, and Snape was hurting, and Neville needed to do something about it.

Chapter 8: Their Wounds

As Neville explained his reasoning to the twins, he grew more and more sure of himself. If another student, or even a teacher, had been hurting Harry, Snape could have gone to the Headmaster and had the bully taken care of. Instead, he helped him run away as soon as he discovered the problem, if Harry's injuries were any indication. The only way for the unplanned escape to make any sense was if the Headmaster couldn't be trusted, and if he wasn't trustworthy, he had probably condoned whatever harm had befallen the other Gryffindor.

The twins were skeptical at first, until after nearly an hour of arguing he finally blurted out the final horror that had been lurking in the back of his mind: Harry had looked like a rape victim. That shut them up. What, they had wanted to know, gave him that impression? Neville explained the redness and the bites and the nudity, and their protests died in their throats.

The three of them decided to find Harry, to confirm the unfathomable, nauseating truth with their own senses. They began meeting secretly under the sheltered brick outcroppings on the side of the castle, sitting in the muddy grass where, maybe, Dumbledore wouldn't hear them.

Neville was pleased in a twisted, selfish sort of way; even if they were only talking to him because of Harry, it was nice to have someone talking to him again. He quickly began to resent himself for it. There was no way to smother the traitorous feelings without smothering himself, however, so he tried instead to focus on the hunt for Harry.

He asked his grandmother to send him her copy of the Wizard Registry, given mostly to purebloods and ministry employees, and tried to figure out where his professor might have gone. Ruffling through the self-updating, cream-colored pages, he found the S section and searched for the man's name. It took him a while, as the more important names were listed in bigger, bolder letters, and many wizards had multiple residences. Eventually, on the bottom of the second-to-last page of the section, he found the name Severus Snape printed in uncharacteristically modest italics. Residence: Hogwarts.

That couldn't be right, he thought, letting the book slide down his bent legs and into his lap. How could it be that Snape didn't have a home of his own? He had known it was a long shot, that the ministry had access to this same registry and would use it to search for the man, but he had thought that either the man would not be listed, or that he would at least find an unused building he could search. Horror rose in the wake of surprise, for if Snape had nowhere to go, he and Harry wouldn't have anywhere to hide safely from the ministry.

When he later told the twins what he had discovered, expecting them to share in his horror, they were strangely nonchalant.

"I never would have thought to look in the registry." George's first comment came along with the quirked eyebrow and crinkled nose that one wore when when presented with startling information.

"Don't you see?" Neville asked, "This is terrible news!"

"Don't worry too much, Neville." Fred told him, patting him on the shoulder, voice soft. "Snape's a resourceful bastard. So are you, apparently. It was a great idea to search the Registry."

Were they trying to avoid the subject? Neville didn't press it, afraid that maybe they were more upset than they wanted to let on, and were using praise to distract him from their dismay. Self-doubt wriggled its way into his heart as they smiled and patted him reassuringly. They didn't trust him to share in their concerns even though he'd been working with them for weeks, wanting so badly for them to accept him.

As if trying to form a fence, the twins settled on either side of him.. "So, Neville, what do you think we should do next?"

Neville didn't respond, too thrown off by the change from his musings to understand the question.

"What we mean is, how should we go about finding them now?"

"Well," he answered, considering the question carefully before he spoke so that he would avoid making a fool of himself, "T-they likely don't have anyone to go to, as the ministry is making such a huge fuss that anyone who shelters them is in danger. Harry would never want to burden someone else like that. So…they'll need to feed themselves somehow, right? If they're camping out or living among muggles, eventually they'll need to get money and magical supplies. B-but they'll know the ministry is watching, too, so they'll be in disguise. Somehow, we'll have to search Diagon Alley, maybe Knockturn too, and try to identify them. There are no other ways for them to get to Gringotts, and if they have enough money with them and need to visit an apothecary, the only other place with anything of a high enough quality for a potions master is Hogsmeade. But they're running from Dumbledore, so they wouldn't get so close to the school if they didn't have to, I t-think."

"That makes complete sense, actually." Said Fred, leaning back on his hands and contemplating Neville like a particularly unusual statue. Neville squirmed, conscious of his stuttering and his bulkiness beside the other boys.

"Definitely. How will we see through their disguises?" George asked, either not noticing or not caring about his brother's confusion.

Neville shrugged, a warm feeling like static electricity running through his chest. He hadn't thought he could feel such elation amidst such horror — it was the same feeling he got when he did surprisingly well on a test — but even the slightest praise from people he admired could satisfy him.

"Don't worry, we'll create something that will let you see through disguises. Shouldn't be too hard —"

"Except that there are so many varieties of identity-concealing spells, we're likely to miss one." George finished.

"W-well, Hermione would probably be the best person to do that kind of research. She's not a professional or anything, but once I o-overheard Professor McGonagall say that she had better spell researching skills than most grown wizards." There. That was a workable, unselfish answer that would keep them from realizing how much he wanted to be the one to help them.

The twins were silent again, the way they often got before they spoke, and frowning slightly. Neville slumped further, all satisfaction gone at that sign of failure.

"I don't know if we should tell Hermione about this." Fred murmured. "She has good intentions, but if word of what we suspect gets out—"

"Which it likely will, because she'll definitely tell Ron about this —"

"Then the whole plan would be ruined."

Part of Neville wanted to do just that and tell her everything he knew so that she and Ron would quit moping around the way they had been. It was disheartening to see such typically steadfast people look so lost. But the twins were right. "Maybe if you don't tell her what it's for. Just offer her royalties on the product i-if you sell it, or something?"

"That might work." George conceded.

"It will work." Fred declared. "Let's go find Hermione!"

"N-now?" Neville stuttered as the twin jumped to their feet.

"It's lunchtime soon, after all. See you later, Neville."

They walked off, leaving him alone again. Neville sighed and settled back down from where he'd started rising to go with them. The moisture in the ground seeped into the back of his robes, but it was a small price to pay to have an area outside of Dumbledore's control.

The hill beside the castle was on a slope, at the bottom of which was a crooked stream that ran down from the lake. Ribbons of water wove through each other to form a web-like pattern, creating a permanent stream, though it looked like it was only temporary runoff. Its trickling was rather peaceful, but most students avoided the area because of the mud and the incline.

Mud seemed a rather petty worry in a situation like theirs, though, and the hill continued to be their meeting place for the rest of the year. Fred and George recruited Hermione, staying true to their promise of secrecy, and developed a lens that could see through both illusions and attention-diverting charms. They made Neville a pair of glasses with the lenses, so he could also disguise himself while on the lookout, and had little else to do with him for the rest of the year. They agreed to take shifts in Diagon Alley, where apparently they were setting up a joke shop, leaving Neville to Knockturn Alley.

It was there that he spend most days, to his Grandmother's strange pleasure; she took it to be a sign that Neville was growing more formidable. It was there, also, that he found Snape. Though it was the middle of summer, the man wore a dark hood charmed to obscure his face. Neville watched from across the street, wondering how to approach him without attracting attention.

The professor was staring at an apothecary, which, being the best in the alley, was likely where he would purchase his supplies. The pots rose into the air and disappeared in the next instant. Was Snape _stealing? _

If so, Neville had to act fast. He slipped his family ring from his finger and ran at the man, pretending to stumble into his path. When they collided, he slipped the ring into the man's robes, only noticing Harry's presence after knocking him aside in the collision. Then the store owner went after them, and Snape recovered in time to flee down the street with Harry, leaving Neville on the ground stunned.

He wondered if he had just exposed them to the ministry. Neville buried his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, wishing as hard as he could for them to escape safely. When the shopkeeper returned empty-handed to assess the damage to his plants, Neville could breathe again. At least they hadn't been captured.

But had they been recognized? Silently hoping that the twins would forgive him for going without them, Neville clenched his eyes shut and apparated to his ring. Before he could react, he found himself falling through the air. He yelped as he hit the ground, landing on someone who screamed far louder than Neville had when they made contact. Neville jumped up and found that it was Harry who had cushioned his fall.

"Harry!" He yelled, grabbing his sleeve. "Are you okay, Harry?"

The other boy lay motionless, his still-pale and tight skin like that of a corpse. It looked as though Snape had been helping him; his wounds had faded and there were muscles where before had been only fragility.

"Harry, I didn't mean to, I swear, I'm sorry! Please wake up!"

Snape shoved him out of the way and took his place at Harry's side. Neville was surprised when the man leant over Harry like a healer prepared to ignore the battle raging around him to save his patient. If Professor Snape, of all people, had such a noble side, then Neville had to be worse than the lowest of the Slytherins.

He was the one who loved Harry the most, who appreciated what he'd been through and what he was, so he should have been the one to act instead of worrying about his own guilt. He should have done something instead of sitting there babbling like an idiot and proving that everything Snape had ever said about him was right.

"Professor S-Snape?" He forced himself to speak once the man set his wand down. "W-why is he unconscious?"

Snape didn't even turn to look at him. "He has a broken arm. Your abysmal landing probably caused too much pain for him to handle."

"O-oh." He whispered, "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have —"

"If you're going to wallow in self-disgust, why don't you try to make yourself useful?" Neville nodded frantically. "I don't suppose you can procure some skele-grow, can you, Longbottom?" Snape glanced back at him, the scornful narrowing of his eyes suggesting that he doubted whether Neville could be useful.

But that was an easy request, and Neville leapt to his feet, stumbling a bit as dizziness struck him. He whirled and stepped forward, apparating mid step to fetch some potions from his home. Nobody was around to question him as he rocketed through the mansion, knocking into furniture and throwing doors against walls. It was more noise than the house had likely heard in generations, but the clamor may as well have fallen under a silencing charm, it meant so little to anyone. Neville found the potions he was looking for in the cupboard on the second floor, where he finally stopped moving for the first time since he left the clearing.

The air was thick with the scent of stale cleaning, like non-consumable alcohol, forcing him to breathe through only his mouth, lest he inhale the toxins. Breathing carefully as he knelt to reach for some lower vials, it struck him that _Harry_ had been the one stealing. His hunch about their not having anywhere to go had proven accurate; not only was Snape letting Harry live in a forest_, _of all places, but he was also so poor that he had to have Harry help him _steal _just to get by.

When he returned to the forest, the sun had just set and the sky was vibrant with the last remaining light. Harry lay where he had been when Neville left them, but Snape was turned away from his charge, leaning back on his hands and gazing upward with impatience. There was just enough moonlight for the trees to cast shadows across the pair, leaving gently-rocking diamonds of light to speckle their otherwise-featureless bodies.

Neville called to him as he approached from the other edge of the clearing, and Snape straightened instantly, raising his hands to his sides and wrenching his face out of the light. Not long ago it would have frightened Neville to see this silhouette waiting for him; he would have felt ill-will radiating from the shadowy figure and known it was irrationally directed at him. Now, it only seemed sad.

The clanking vials resounded as Neville set them beside the pair, pausing only to hand the skele-grow over to the man, whose searching eyes he avoided. Snape accepted the potion and pulled the cork from the glass with a crisp _pop _and a rustle of fabric. The man lifted Harry's head, as parents do for babies, before setting it in his lap to keep it at the proper angle. Harry didn't stir as he was maneuvered onto his former enemy's lap and Neville started, crushing two vials together as realized how dangerous it was for Harry to be left vulnerable.

It was strange to see him undefended as Snape used one hand to press Harry's cheeks together and the other to pour the liquid down his throat. Neville shuddered again; the potion could have been poison, and Harry couldn't have done a thing to protect himself.

Finally, the man cocked his head to the side, eyes flashing as they passed through a patch of moonlight and focused on Neville. Neville didn't miss the one hand that lingered against Harry's forehead, filtering through his messy bangs. Something about the touch made him feel uncomfortable. Neville didn't know how to treat rape victims, but he'd thought they were supposed to be afraid of contact. Touch would probably frighten Harry if he was awake to know about it. Neville opened his mouth to tell Snape that he should be more careful.

"Why are you here?" The slytherin interrupted before he could say anything, his voice steady and melodious despite the wrongness of the entire situation.

"I-I wanted to see if Harry was okay." Neville mumbled, shrinking back.

"Did you really?" The man asked, inflection steady.

"N-no." Neville admitted. "Of course he's not okay. How could he be? I just…"

"Just what, Mr. Longbottom?"

"I'm s-sorry!"

Snape sighed, exasperation and weariness mixing together with the air that puffed from his mouth. "Why is that, Mr. Longbottom?"

"I just wanted to see Harry! That's all! I know it's selfish, but I m-missed him. And now I've hurt him."

There was a heavy silence as Snape paused, stilled his hand, and glanced back at Harry for several seconds before turning back to him. "No, Mr. Longbottom, such goodwill is exactly what Mr. Potter needs."

Neville simply stared.

"Potter, you see, doesn't value himself as an individual. He vacillates between personalities as though he's been hiding himself for so long that he doesn't know who he is anymore. One minute he'll be close to normal, and the next he'll be cynical or disoriented. There's no real pattern to it, but it should be stabilizing for him to know that there's someone who values him for the brighter of his personalities."

"I c-can really help?" Neville wondered. He felt a little better about himself and pondered whether the sliver of ego would last longer than it had the last time.

"I believe so. For it to work, though, you need to accept him even when he's not the smiling lion you're accustomed to. He has every reason to be unhappy; there's little we can do to stop the man who hurt us."

"Us, sir?" Neville shifted uncomfortably, looking at Snape without meeting his eyes. He must be misunderstanding.

"I was… in a similar situation while I was still in school." Snape's lips twisted and Neville wasn't misunderstanding him at all when he realized that the man had revealed more than he meant to.

It was the professor's turn to avoid eye contact, and the sight knocked out Neville's common sense and replaced it with an overwhelming need to comfort. Snape should never look ashamed, Neville thought as he placed a hand on the man's arm, respectfully turning his eyes away. They couldn't even look at each other without shame.

That both Snape and Harry were victims was almost too crazy to understand. Had Dumbledore been a disguised criminal for so long? Had a pedophile really been allowed to get away with running a school full of small children? The thought of returning for his final year felt more daunting than when he'd thought Harry the only victim; Dumbledore could get away with _anything _if he'd gotten away with Snape. How many other Gryffindors had he hurt? How many other _Slytherins? _

And what could Neville possibly do about it? He had barely ever spoken to Dumbledore, so the man's crimes shouldn't feel like betrayals. But, inexplicably, Neville's first instinct was that of a child who'd disappointed his parents and wanted to know what he'd done wrong.

The frustrationof the situation started to overwhelm him, and his chest heaved as it became harder and harder to move air through his lungs. His heart was surely fracturing under this strain as thousands of tiny cracks expanded over the organ until it was inevitable that it would shatter.

"Go home, Mr. Longbottom." He jumped at the sound of Snape's tender voice, his heart pounding but sticking together in spite of it all. Neville clutched his chest and stared for a moment, certain that he had just _whimpered _as he took back the hand that had probably lingered for too long. "Sleep." The man told him, reflecting Neville's concern back at him.

"B-but…Harry is still…"

"Harry likely won't wake until morning, and you may return then." Snape opened his mouth as though he had more to say, but shook his head and remained silent, still looking at Neville as though he would explode at any moment. It was similar to the twin's glances, and Neville subconsciously straightened, the same way he did whenever Harry praised him.

Gratitude warmed him, distracting him from Snape and filling him with anticipation for the next day. Though the past several months had been awful — for him and these two as well, it seemed — the thought that he could see Harry again, that Harry would be awake to encourage him and need him, made the future brighter.

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Neville barely slept that night, too conscious of the patches of moonlight shining through his window like some sort of beacon. It was always cold in the mansion, yet his Grandmother refused to use warming charms because she said they might damage the stone. She was like that; she collected rare objects and furniture that she never allowed anyone to use, too determined not to spoil them. It was the act of having that seemed to please her: having a giant house though almost nobody lived in it, having pride in her son long after he had been lost to his coma, and even having a noble heir, though Neville doubted she would ever let him do anything, even if he was competent enough to satisfy her.

And yet, for some reason, everybody respected her. If Augusta Longbottom asked the ministry for something, they would jump to keep her happy. She was old enough that she'd begun to dress in frumpy robes and complain of being cold even in the middle of the summer, leaving the comfort of the mansion only rarely. The few times she actually went out, however, she was a role model for younger pureblood women. If she wore a certain scarf, there would be three imitations of that scarf ordered within days of the occasion at which she wore it. Pureblood girls would copy her mannerisms when they saw her in public, and some sought her out for advice on proper self-presentation.

There was no way an oaf like Neville could possibly live up to those standards. He'd given up on satisfying her years ago, and instead learned to do just enough to keep her happy. By the time he left for Hogwarts, he'd known he was destined for the sidelines, to be one of the countless wizards that learned about the world solely from The Daily Prophet, without ever being interesting enough to feature in it. When others teased him, however, when they ignored him or embarrassed him, it had stung even when he expected it. Only Harry spoke gently to him. He asked for Neville's opinion, stood up for Neville when he saw him being bullied, and treated him the same way he treated the rest of their year mates — as another Gryffindor, worthy of respect, not as an oaf.

Gradually, Harry's presence reawakened Neville's urge to prove himself. If someone like Harry thought that Neville was worth his friendship, then Neville could surely be worth something in general. He'd resumed paying attention when his Grandmother lectured him about purebloods and politics, and though he knew he'd never be anything more than ordinary, he'd realized that it wasn't the end of the world, that even ordinary people might eventually make friends. Neville wanted with all his heart to be Harry's friend. There was no reason to try so hard without the other boy to see him succeed.

He spent most of the night gazing at the dark sky through his window, falling asleep for only a few hours before the sun's earliest light told him it was time to wake up. He sprang from bed and, calling an elf for a piece of toast and telling it that he would be out for the day, apparated without even changing his robes.

Snape was awake too, and merely glanced up at Neville when he arrived. He looked away again, accepting Neville's presence as though he had passed some sort of test the evening before.

Neville spotted Harry lying awake near the fire, its blue glow revealing wrinkles around his eyes and how his skinny face made his ears seem huge, and was taken aback. He had seemed better the night before, but only a few hours later looked worse than he had at Hogwarts. Neville wanted to reach out and yank one of Harry's ears back, to put it back where it should be on a normal, healthy teenager's face.

He'd expected to talk with Harry about things like friends and the dark lord, but that was wrong. He couldn't think about himself when Harry looked like he expected to sit in that spot for the rest of his life, suffering and remembering Dumbledore forever.

"I won't forgive him!"Neville snarled under his breath, swinging his wand as if using it to cut the man's throat.

Harry didn't seem to hear, but Snape's head snapped up, unconcealed surprise on his face. It was only natural, Neville thought. Dumbledore had taken something precious from him, and no other triumphs, in the war or otherwise, would ever make up for it. But the man's movement reminded him that Snape was here, and that he was supposed to be the one looking after Harry. Neville steeled himself to question the professor, to make him explain _why_ Harry looked worse than ever. He'd let Snape take Harry away, and he had to know that he'd been right. He couldn't handle not being right.

A shift called his attention to Harry, who sat up and looked at his arm, moving it around to see if it worked properly. He could probably feel the residual aches of skele-grow in the bones, especially since he'd had to re-grow them back in second year.

"I can't believe I did that." He groaned, leaning forward dejectedly. "I'm such a fucking idiot! I couldn't even keep the pots from breaking and then I passed out from just a little pain. Snape's gonna tear me apart for this. I should just beat him to it and cast a blending spell down my windpipe. Broken pots! Ha-ha."

And suddenly Harry was in Snape's arms and the man's facade gave way to grief as he held the gryffindor as tightly as he could, holding his arms down as if he feared that Harry would act on his unnervingly specific suicide plan.

"I'll do no such thing." Snape asserted. There was pain in his voice, but also a strange sort of understanding. Harry had been hurt so much that he'd even turned against himself, and it was tragic and it shouldn't be that way, but Snape _understood._

And so did Neville. It was unfair to be angry with Snape, to demand that he help Harry without thinking about his own suffering. It was probably the first time he'd found someone who understood what he'd been through, and he had to treat him carefully. He had to indulge him and let him do whatever he wanted with his health, and he probably knew better than Neville what was best. It wasn't right to question him.

Still, the thought of Harry suffering such pain that it haunted him into adulthood hit Neville like an overpowered bludger, and he couldn't do anything but watch without breathing as they danced around each other, both terrified to do something wrong.

"Sir," Harry tensed as he gazed at the man, almost pleading. "You've got to. I wasted Merlin-knows-how-many hours being weak and I messed up your plan." He lifted a fist as if he would pound it against Snape's chest, but instead set it there gently, right over his heart.

"Are you saying that you _want _me to hurt you?" There was something burning in Snape's eyes, as if he had just figured out a grand secret that had been evading him.

"No!" He answered too quickly, chagrined. "Of course I don't want to be hurt; that'd be freakish. I know you have no intention of hurting me, sir. You said so."

But Harry clearly didn't believe what he was saying, and though he might have thought himself convincing, it was obvious that he was afraid to disagree.

"Harry." Snape murmured, shifting Harry in his arms so that he could pull him even closer, until their shadows became one. "You're not a freak. You were violated by a criminal who took advantage of you. That's why you're learning how to be strong now, so that you won't ever have to go through that again."

"People have been teaching me how to be strong for a long time now." Harry muttered, and the professor's arms fell as if someone had numbed him. Apparently something in his words resonated differently with Snape than they did with Neville, because he didn't understand the self-loathing that filled the professor's eyes.

"It's —" the man trailed off and swallowed, trying to overcome his surprise before he spoke again in a thick voice. "It's not the same thing, Harry."

"Of course, sir." Harry told him, but again it was a transparent lie.

Snape stood and moved out of Harry's sight, where he took a silent breath to regain control of his emotions.

What wasn't the same thing? What had Harry meant? Something important had to have happened just then, but the only thing that Neville could figure out was that they were hurting. They hurt so much that it was suffocating just to watch them. Harry didn't trust Snape to keep him safe, even though Snape meant him absolutely no harm. The tenderness in his eyes was proof enough that he could be trusted. Even with such clear evidence, Harry was too hurt to believe in people. Was that why he looked so haggard, even after Snape had been helping him for months? The easy faith he'd always placed in people — even Neville — was gone.

Snape must have wanted Harry's trust so badly, just like Neville did — even more than Neville because of everything he'd been through. But he still stayed with Harry and helped him in spite of the pain, because he cared about him and that was what people were supposed to do for each other. Neville felt tears burning his eyes; he'd always wanted to have someone he could prove his loyalty to like that, but not like this, not at the cost of Harry's happiness.

If the headmaster was strong because he had a large network of allies and a vast knowledge of magic, then Neville would just have to make even more allies and learn even more magic. He would become an existence that not even Dumbledore could oppose, and then Dumbledore would be the one made to hate himself. Dumbledore would understand exactly what it felt like to be abused by powers beyond his control, and just how much people valued Harry's presence in their lives. Maybe then, just maybe, Harry could become their light again.

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So, I'm trying to make more out of each chapter, because this story is moving too slowly. I wrote this chapter last week, but I went back and spruced up the other chapters, nothing too major, before I posted this one. I'm still trying to find a balance between length and action, so I'm going to try not to dwell so painfully on character development. It should be good.

To help me practice, I'm offering you an incentive! I got this idea from another author who does the same thing. If you review and tell me what you think of the story, **I'll write you a short drabble** on a topic of your choice, related to the story of course. Just put in your request and tell me what you want to read about, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	9. Their Investigation: Twins

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **When Neville told them about Harry, George wanted to jump in right away. Fred wasn't so sure.

Chapter 9: Their Investigation

"Why not?" George asked, hiding his frustration from Neville.

The younger boy looked down, his hands worrying at the edges of his sleeve. "I shouldn't have followed them. B-being there with them…it's like e-eavesdroping on something I shouldn't know about."

"And what's wrong with that? We all just want to see that he's alright. Didn't you say that he looked worse off than before? If that git is hurting him, we're the only ones who can do something to help him! You _have_ to bring us there."

Neville flinched and fell into a one-armed hug, and Fred wanted to grimace at his brother's tactlessness. Snape was Neville's worst fear, so of course he wouldn't want to upset the man by bringing them to Harry.

_Calm down, he's scared. _Fred warned when he saw George's fingertips twitch with nervous energy.

_Harry matters more than Neville right now! We need to make sure he's okay. _George shot back.

Fred hopped off of the newly-sanded countertop and walked over to the shelves where Neville had been looking at their products. He always looked uncomfortable when they started talking in their heads, and Fred supposed that it was a bad habit to exclude other people like that. It was just that, because it was so easy for them to communicate mind to mind, they often forgot they weren't talking out loud.

"Why don't you start from the beginning? Tell us exactly what you saw while you were with them." He suggested, keeping his voice light to put Neville at ease.

He told them how Harry was stealing and broke his arm, how Snape tended to him perfectly, and how the man hugged Harry but the hero didn't seem to think he was safe. He told them how frightening it was when Harry woke up and talked about killing himself like he was intimately familiar with the idea.

"You're not supposed to touch rape victims." Fred murmured, tapping his lips thoughtfully.

They were both unnerved by the thought of Harry contemplating death, and flashed back to fourth year when Harry came back from Voldemort, dazed at the crowds of people around him because he hadn't expected to still be alive. Shortly after that, he'd handed them all of his compensation on the train, his eyes still baggy and haunted as he made it clear that he couldn't bear keeping anything that reminded him of that night.

George spoke up, and though his face was unexpressive, Fred could hear his twin's heart pounding in both their ears. "Snape's a professor, so he should have had training to deal with things like this. If he's touching Harry, then —"

"He's not trying to make Harry better. Maybe Dumbledore _wasn't _the one —"

"That's not it." Neville whispered, and Fred stopped short despite his rage at the thought of the bat touching Harry, because Neville _never _interrupted people. "I know you want to believe in him, but Dumbledore's definitely the one who did it." There was tightly coiled rage in Neville's voice and a sheen of memory over his eyes as he relived whatever evidence made him so certain.

_He's hiding something. _Fred warned his brother, observing Neville closely.

"How do you know for sure?" George wondered, watching him just as keenly.

Neville's eyes shifted under their attention until they focused straight down at the floor. He didn't say anything, just gripped his arm more tightly as if preparing to resist an interrogation. He was clearly used to verbal attacks, because he lit up whenever they paid him the slightest compliment. He always slumped back down moments later, clearly twisting the praise into an insult in his mind. The twins knew what it was like for the world to be against them, so they complimented him again and again, hoping that he would eventually believe them. But it hadn't worked yet.

The shelf was smooth as Fred set his hand down beside the extendable ears, picking one up and pretending to look at it instead of Neville. "The headmaster _did _lie to the ministry." Fred mused, and Neville's head shot up, gratitude on his face.

_Then that bastard was probably working with him. _George thought, and began to speak: "But —"

"But that doesn't mean Snape's innocent either." Fred interrupted, knowing that his brother was too upset to word things tactfully. The younger twin shot him a petulant frown, annoyed at being interrupted. Fred just stuck out his tongue.

"He is." Neville insisted, not offering a reason for it.

"Look," Fred offered, "If Snape's threatened you, we can help. Just apparate us to where they are and hide, and we'll take care of the rest."

"He wouldn't!" the black-haired boy shouted suddenly, anger twisting his eyebrows at the ends. "Snape's not like that. He's helping Harry get better."

_Sounds like wishful thinking. _George suggested.

_Yeah, but he'll just sink in his teeth if we insist._

_The last-resort listener it is then. _Out of Neville's sight, George slipped a small, translucent circle of paper from a box and set it on the tip of his finger, where it wrinkled like a flower petal until he whispered the activation spell. The paper hardened as if it were metal before it rose off of his finger and glided over to Neville, not so fast that it risked cutting him with its sharpened edges, but at least as fast as a snitch. It landed on his sleeve, softening into paper again as it pressed itself into the fabric until it was indiscernible to the naked eye.

They'd made the listener to eavesdrop on a long-term basis, mostly for amusement, but they also understood the dangerous possibilities of their invention. It would stick to a target and camouflage itself against whatever surface it landed on, transmitting sound back to a receiver that would record every noise its target encountered. It was fun to play with, but the consequences of Voldemort or their mom getting one were so frightening that they had meant to destroy them. They had saved two, one for themselves and another for Harry, who they thought could benefit from the invention. It was only fitting that they were now using it to help him, because he was the one who had funded their research in the first place.

Still, it felt wrong. Nobody deserved to have their privacy violated so mercilessly. Neville especially didn't deserve to have people trick him; he already thought that nobody cared about him, and finding out that they were using him would likely upset him. But Harry was the one who had made all of their dreams come true, who encouraged them to profit from his suffering and bring a little more happiness into the world. They owed him this much.

"Alright, Neville. We'll leave it for now." Fred told him. Neville relaxed, the muscles he had clenched bulging outward before tightening again.

"But tell us what happens next time you see them." George added, and Neville nodded before he pushed through the door.

It was a shame, Fred mused, that Neville never relaxed around them. He acted as if they knew everything about the world, as if their insignificant opinions of him where the sole determiners of his value. Back when he was a first year, Neville had been bullied, but he'd seemed happy enough. Fred and George had played some unkind pranks on him, but they had always done so with the amusement of children who poked at a bee to see how long it would take to get stung. Fred wondered whether they'd simply missed the warning signs of an inferiority complex or whether — he prayed to Merlin it wasn't so — they had helped cause it. They were never alone because they could talk to each other without sound, but Neville was so afraid that people would tease him that he let himself be pushed around. He hid everything about himself so that he didn't seem to have a personality at all.

That was why the twins had been so surprised when Neville turned out to be a brilliant information hunter. He'd discovered Snape's address and analyzed the situation, understanding implications of the ministry hunt that the twins would never have thought of. Even George, who had a tendency to worry over every possible outcome of a situation, hadn't thought about how, without a house, Snape would take Harry somewhere strange.

Fred almost wished they'd never thought of that possibility, because as soon as he realized that Harry would be alone with Snape, that the big-hearted boy was alone with a man who would taunt and degrade him until he hated himself, he'd been petrified. And now it sounded like Snape was hurting Harry, and Fred _needed _to find him, to find the first person who'd ever done something so special just for them and make sure that he wasn't lost somewhere in the world without anyone to do the same thing for him. Fred took the receiver from George's hands and activated it, determined to keep it with him and stay awake until he'd heard Harry's voice for himself.

_Fred. _George thought warmly. There was no need to speak out loud when they were alone together. _Let me take a turn too. It wouldn't do anyone any good for you to run without any rest. Besides, you have to talk with the contractors tomorrow about overcharging us. You know I'm terrible with negotiations._

_Don't undervalue yourself. _Fred ignored the rest of his twin's request. _Without you, we would never have found such good contractors in the first place. Just because you're too obvious with people —_

_Obvious! _George glared at him, and Fred's lips curled into a lazy smirk. _I'm just as good with people as you are. I'll do the negotiations tomorrow and prove it. I don't know why people always listen to you more than me, but it's certainly not because I'm _obvious.

Fred snorted, rolling his eyes at his overworked brother. _And telling Neville that a man he, for whatever reason, believes in so much that he's willing to argue for him is abusing Harry shows how good with people you are. _

_He _is _abusing him! Nothing else makes sense. _

_I agree. But Neville believes in him. And Harry's in more danger, but Neville's fragile too, so we shouldn't just stomp all over his beliefs when he decides to grow a backbone for them. Especially if we're the ones who helped make him such a coward._

_Right. _George consented, _We've got to look out for him. _He paused. _But you haven't slept in over a day anyway, because you spent all night messing around in the potions lab downstairs._

_And you spent all night in the alley hoping Snape or Harry would show up._

_But _I'm _clearly too obvious with people to do the negotiations tomorrow. So you should sleep and let me take the first night shift._

"…Fine." Fred consented, handing the listener back to George. "Wake me up if anything urgent happens." _Or even if you get too tired. This isn't one of those stories about the heroes who have to suffer alone to help a damsel. There are two of us, so don't go about proving how heroic you are by depriving yourself of sleep._

George just grinned at him victoriously as he went into the back to take a nap.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fred finished negotiations and returned triumphantly, insisting that he take a turn with the listener, though Neville had not yet done anything but speak passingly to his Grandmother. It was actually unnerving how rarely the other boy talked to people on a day-to-day basis. The older twin was locked in a room downstairs, listening carefully for Harry or Snape to turn up, leaving George to entertain Ron and Hermione when they stopped by to visit.

"Harry's the one who brought us together." Ron told him morosely, sipping on a can of their color-changing cola and ignoring the fluctuation of hues across his skin. "And now Snape's gone and kidnapped him, and the only thing we have to talk about is Harry, like always. Hermione's got a plan for breaking into the ministry search records, so we'll know where not to look. But we're going to find him."

"Why can't you just let the ministry search?" George asked, hating that he couldn't just tell them where to find the pair. Ron was slumped behind the front desk next to him, swishing the can in his hands as if Harry would suddenly pop out of it.

"Because searching for Harry is the only thing that's keeping us going." Ron whispered, his eyes dimming as he grimaced. "Hermione's the one that always encourages Harry and me to try our hardest. There were lots of times when we'd have never made up if she hadn't been there. So both of them, Harry _and _Hermione, are the ones who do all the work in our friendship. If I weren't here, it wouldn't matter."

"Ron…that's freaking depressing." There were no better words for it than that. Harry's absence was bringing out all sorts of inferiority complexes, and apparently Ron wasn't any more resistant to the loss than Neville was.

"Yeah." Ron agreed, looking over to the covered bench where Hermione sat examining books about the ministry that she'd collected. "But look at her. She's working so hard for this, and I can't do anything but keep her company while she does it. But I'm good at strategizing. If she gets the information, I can use it. Maybe I can finally pull my own weight, and we can get Harry back, and everything will go back to normal."

"Even if you get him back, Ron, he'll never be normal after what he's been through."

_Crap. _George thought as his brother looked up at him sharply, setting the can down with a thunk and squeezing it until the metal crinkled.

"What do you know?" Ron demanded, his face changing from blue to red.

"Nothing for sure." George murmured. "But if he's been kidnapped by that guy, don't you think he'll be hurt? Snape'll probably be a thousand times worse than when he's at Hogwarts. And what if he takes him to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? He won't come out of that the same."

"Harry _always _comes out the same." Ron told his brother seriously. "He has terrible nightmares and he's always too tired but he still smiles because he's _Harry _and he just wants everything to be normal. Everyone always tries to act like his nightmares mean there's something wrong with him, but that messes him up more than V-Voldemort does."

"Ron…" George said wonderingly.

"Yeah, I said it! Because Harry always says it, and he's right. He may be scared because of Voldemort, but what makes him sad is everyone else. He hates it when people make his perfectly-understandable nightmares into such a big _fucking _deal and act like it's the end of the world if he's a little sad on Halloween, or angry when someone insults his parents or calls him a liar. That's normal; he's a Gryffindor. He can handle the nightmares and the fights because he has us with him, but he can't handle it when the people he's supposed to be helping act like they want him to be messed up, because then he's alone. That's when he starts getting messed up like they want him to."

"Ron…"

"But now he's even more alone. When he starts getting like that, feeling bad about himself the way he probably will when he's with Snape, Hermione steps in. She does this girl thing where she looks like she's about to cry and she hugs you and tells you that the rest of the world is stupid. Imagine that! It's so ridiculous, because who is she to judge the rest of the world, really? But when she says it you believe her, and everything gets better. So…he'll be fine. We just have to find him. Then he and Hermione'll put us back together again."

"But it's different this time." George insisted, unable to resist talking when his brother looked so desperate. His eyes were wide, and he was gripping the can in his hand as if he would throw it the minute George suggested everything wouldn't be exactly the way it was before. He looked ready to stab anyone, even himself.

"How do you _know?" _Ron growled this time, and George gave in, just a little.

"Listen. I can't…but you've gotta listen to me on this one. Harry's in worse shape than you know. I think Snape's doing something really badto him, and he's been doing it for longer than any of us realized."

"What? But —"

"At Hogwarts, yeah. Harry's been suffering for a long time. I want to tell you more, but I _can't _right now."

"Why?" Ron whispered, suddenly looking like the vulnerable 4-year-old he'd once been, close to tears because his new robes were all hand-me-downs and he didn't think he was special enough.

_Because Fred thinks Snape's threatening Neville. _George longed to say. "Because then Snape might hurt Harry worse."

Strangely, that was enough for Ron. He gulped, prying his fist from the can on the counter before he got to his feet. George followed his example, reaching out and pulling Ron into his arms, trying to pass some strength onto him.

"Will you tell me when you can?" Ron asked, voice muffled against George's shirt.

"As soon as I can." George confirmed.

"Is there anything else that we should know?" Ron mumbled, and George realized that everything related to Harry that Ron found out would go straight to Hermione too.

_George! _Fred called to him. _It's happening, get down here!_

"Only that…you do more than you think for Harry, Ron. You know what makes him happy, what upsets him. You can do more than just wait for Hermione to get that information." George sighed. "Now go. Fred needs help with a potion."

Ron nodded and pulled away, not questioning how George knew that Fred needed him. His face was composed, and George knew that he wouldn't hear from Ron again until he and Hermione had accomplished something in their search.

As soon as the pair left, George whirled and charged down the stairs to the basement lab, nearly tripping into the door as he fumbled to open it. He entered the room quietly, not at all cheered by the rainbow paint splattering the walls as he slipped into the chair beside Fred's. They were at a table in the center of the room, surrounded by tubes and supplies pressed against the walls, which apparently created an echo. The voices from the listener were easy to hear throughout the whole room.

"When, sir?" Neville's voice was as clear as if he were in the room with them.

"We'll have dinner soon. You can talk with him then." Snape's voice was calm, but George frowned at the control implied in that statement. Just what was Snape having Harry do that prevented talking?

_They were talking about Neville seeing Harry do something when he talks to him. They said something about stopping him. _Fred didn't look away from the glowing green orb as he filled George in on what he'd missed.

"Is it r-really that bad?" Neville asked.

"He's losing his mind." Snape confirmed, and the twins started, not expecting something like that. "I'm trying to nurse some anger from him, but he's getting resistant to everything I try. His mood swings are getting worse."

Neville didn't say anything, and about a minute later, they heard crunching footsteps. "Harry." Neville greeted.

Harry didn't say anything, but the sounds that followed suggested that they had begun to eat. "Surprised?" Snape drawled. "Longbottom decided that he should supply the food if he was eating with us."

"It's good, sir." Harry answered, and there was more silence.

"Is that all you're eating, Harry?" Neville asked. "There's plenty."

"I…haven't eaten anything this rich in a while." Harry responded, his voice dipping submissively. He sounded unsure, and it sounded wrong on him.

"Oh." Neville murmured. "S-should I bring more food for you?"

"No thank you." Harry responded tightly, and Neville sighed.

"That might not be a bad idea, Longbottom." Snape responded after Harry. "He needs better nutrition with all the training he's doing. More than what we've been getting."

"I don't need any help!" Harry snapped.

"I'm not trying to control you, Harry. It's for your own good." Snape barked impatiently.

"I know, sir." Harry responded, voice sinking again.

_He really is moody. _George noted.

_I wouldn't argue with the guy raping me either. _Fred retorted.

"Do you n-not like this food, Harry? I-I can bring something else for you!" Neville's voice was earnest.

"It's great, Neville!" Harry assured him. "I'm sorry my stomach's so weak. I'm wasting your food."

"No you're not!" Neville insisted. "You need more of it! Look how skinny you are."

George noted with surprise that the boy's stutter was gone.

_Hadn't you noticed? _Fred wondered._ He doesn't stutter when he's doing something on behalf of someone else. Only when he's talking about himself, or else when he's afraid of being looked down on. _

"Wisdom from a Gryffindor. Imagine that." Snape snarked. "I'll leave the two of you alone for a bit. Longbottom, do me a favor and make sure he doesn't cast any spells down his throat while I'm gone."

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" Harry asked quietly once Snape left.

"It w-was a little scary." Neville confessed. "T-to hear you talking like that. I n-never thought I'd hear something like that from you."

"Sorry. I know I'm a bit of a mess right now. I'll try not to talk like that in front of you."

"You shouldn't _think _like that at all!" Neville's voice shook as he spoke. "Why would you ever want to hurt yourself so badly?"

"…How much do you know about what happened to me?"

"Dumbledore was hurting you. I saw what kind of wounds you had when you left."

"Dumbledore was teaching me." Harry said, voice low and secretive as if he knew he was being listened in on. "So that I can take as much pain as possible when I fight Voldemort, so that I can be strong. I'm really weak, and I have all sorts of bad things inside me, desires and evils that I got with this scar. But now there's no way to keep training, because Snape hates Dumbledore, so he took me away from him."

"Harry, do you really believe that?" Neville asked gently.

"Uh…no, of course not." He sounded like he thought he had said to much and was trying to take it back. "That's just what I thought. In the past, you know. Snape told me that I'm not the only person Dumbledore's hurt, that he was just using me. I'm just _used _to being hurt, you know? It's weird to be without that kind of training for so long."

"Harry…do you miss it?"

_What a strange thing to ask. Why would he…_

"A little." Harry sighed, and George felt tears welling in his eyes. "Everything was so simple before. Now there's Snape and he's training me too, like Dumbledore, except he's not hurting me. I feel like I'm cheating my way out of something."

"Out of pain?" Neville wondered. "But why should you expect to go through that kind of thing? You mentioned some kind of evil in you?"

"Exactly." Harry confirmed. "I didn't always enjoy what Dumbledore did, but there were parts that felt good too. I always knew that he was making me better. He was prepared to do anything short of killing me to suppress the bad things. Now there's nothing to stop me from thinking about it, and it's terrifying to think of how messed up I'm going to get without him."

"But…what's wrong with you? Why can't you ask Snape to help you with it?"

Harry didn't answer.

"Snape wants to help you, Harry. You don't believe me, but he does."

"He's just pretending!" Harry insisted. "It's a mind game, I think. He's just pretending that he's helping me, but he'll want to use me soon too."

"Harry…didn't you just say Dumbledore was helping you, not using you?"

"Just like Snape!" The boy agreed, and the twins looked at each other in confusion. _Losing his mind…? _George wondered. "He's making me strong so that I can kill Dumbledore, but the only way to make me strong is to hurt me until the evil goes away, so he'll do that soon."

"W-why do you look so happy about that?" Neville's voice was careful, almost afraid.

"Because then I won't have to worry when he's going to start hurting me anymore. Now, I'm constantly waiting for it, and he taunts me by touching me sometimes, but he hasn't attacked yet. Once he does, I can relax because I won't have to pretend that I think he's helping me anymore."

"So he's not helping you?"

"No, he is. He's just pretending that he's not."

George was crying openly now, though not sobbing. Harry was really losing his mind.

_He's confusing words. _Fred corrected. _He's getting helping and hurting mixed up because Dumbledore always told him that he was helping him when he hurt him. It seems like he's confused because Snape is helping him, and he expects helping to involve pain. He's not crazy at all. He's just really, really scared of whatever Dumbledore said was wrong with him, but he's also scared of the pain he thinks he deserves. _

_No wonder he sounds so crazy. _George realized, sensing the truth of his brother's words. _Apparently Snape's not hurting him, though I'm a little concerned about the touching Harry mentioned. No matter what happens, whether someone hurts him or not, he thinks he's going to suffer. I'd be scared to trust anyone too, if I was in that situation._

"And he wants you to kill Dumbledore…?"

"No, Voldemort." Harry corrected cheerfully. "Well, I think so at least. Dumbledore, Voldemort, what's the difference?

_See? He's even getting names confused, because people aren't being clear about what they want from him. _

_But why does he sound so cheerful about it all? _George wondered.

_That's what Harry usually sounds like. Maybe…is he trying to _comfort _Neville?_

"Harry, _I'm _going to kill Dumbledore for you, so don't worry about it, okay?" Fred grinned at Neville's declaration. It was mildly disturbing for him to think about Neville killing someone, but the sentiment was right.

"No, don't!" Harry yelled, and Neville yelped, followed quickly by a thud. "You can't, Neville." Harry insisted, his voice low but loud, indicating that it was somewhere very close to Neville. "Dumbledore's really strong and he'll hurt you if you try to kill him. I don't…want him to do _that _to you. Please, don't! You can't, you can't, you can't…"

_Definitely trying to comfort him._

Harry continued muttering frantically under his breath, but Neville seemed to handle it well. "Thanks for caring about me, Harry. I've never met anyone as kind as you are."

"Me?" Harry asked. "No, I'm evil."

"No!" Neville insisted. "Dumbledore's evil. Dumbledore's the bad one, and he's gone and messed you up a lot, Harry. You're…I'm not sure you're acting right, and it scares me. But you're not bad. Never."

_He and Snape don't understand what's going on! _George realized. _They really think he's going crazy because he's jumping around so much. We've got to tell them what's really happening to Harry. _

"Dumbledore hurts, Neville." Harry informed his friend nervously. "Please don't try to go after him."

"Okay, Harry. If I go after him, I'll do it with you and Snape, and only if we're sure we can win. I promise."

"Goodgoodgood." Harry breathed. "But there's no way to beat him. We've thought about it. That's why we ran away. Everyone likes him, so nobody will believe us. He's gotten too much power since my parents died. Maybe, if someone then had known what he was like, someone other than Snape when he was my age and all alone, then they could've stopped him. But not now."

"Then we'll go back in time!" Neville insisted. "Whatever it takes. We'll find a way to make him pay for what he's done!"

"Neville, that's impossible. You're crazy."

Neville sobbed once, likely thinking that Harry was the crazy one. But he was _wrong. _"Time travel is, yes. But not stopping Dumbledore. I'll find a way."

"But you won't try to fight him, right?" Harry asked.

"Right." Neville answered firmly.

"Good." Harry repeated. "I like talking to you, Neville, but Snape'll come back soon and I want to practice magic some more before he makes me go to sleep. I have to practice as much as I can while he's still being nice to me."

"Alright, Harry." Neville responded. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Fred and George looked at each other for a moment, then stood up to get their coats. They were going to pay a visit to Longbottom manor, and then they'd see Harry tomorrow too, and make sure everyone understood that he was perfectly sane.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Okay, so I'm not sure exactly where this came from, but whatever! I like writing drabbles for reviewers, because they help me get my ideas flowing in small bursts. This chapter was easier to write because it has so much dialogue. Fred and George are just talkers whereas Snape, Harry, and Neville are introverts, I guess. I'm really excited about how things are going, and I hope you are too!

Review and let me know! And just like last chapter, if you review and **specifically request **a drabble with a topic (related to this story) of your choice, I'll be happy to write it for you!


	10. Their Migration: Multi

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Snape didn't know why Gryffindor strays kept turning up, but he knew that there was one stray that mattered more than the rest.

Chapter 10: Their Migration

Severus Snape was more than a little annoyed when Neville returned in the middle of the night with the Weasley twins in tow. The timid boy cowered and avoided eye contact as the older man glared at him accusingly. Severus's eyes trailed over the youngest boy, noticing the hand gripping his shoulder and following it back to its owner. Both of the redheads glared at their former professor with open hostility, and Neville was overly conscious of the tension in the air because of the force behind the hand gripping him. The potions master's first instinct was to attack the boy for revealing their location, but the trembling of the child's jaw gave him pause, and he thought of Harry who would take criticism even when it was undeserved. It was important to consider alternatives instead of lashing out without restraint, he was learning, and it was very possible that Neville had been bullied into giving up their location to the older boys.

Suddenly shifting, Severus strode forward from beside the fire, dark cloak flowing gently as he went, his suspicions transforming his face into one of calm assurance that disguised the full extent of his anger. He was a tall man, and he towered easily above his unwanted guests, who held their ground and tried to look brave, but nonetheless let their uneasiness show in their eyes. When he finally addressed them, his voice was frosted and sharp even while kept it low out of respect for his sleeping student.

"Just what do you think you're doing here?"

A collective shudder ran through all three of his former pupils at the restrained anger they perceived in his voice. The man inwardly smirked as they looked everywhere but at him, reacting the same way they would have if he had caught them after curfew. They were still children, dropping out of Hogwarts or not, and he could manipulate the flux of their emotions as easily as he could the course of a potion. Fred and George decided at the same moment to respond, and both opened their mouths, only to fall silent when they saw their jaws move simultaneously. It was a sign of extreme nervousness that the twins, famed for their coordinated speech, could not even begin to respond.

"T-they say that there's something important about H-Harry, sir." Neville spoke first, his voice breathy and small in the still of the night.

Snape was struck again by the boy's courage, which he had been noticing in small instances ever since Neville had first discovered them. Here was undeniable proof that what he had been seeing was correct; the young Gryffindor had outperformed even some of the most famously reckless Gryffindors, demonstrating his courage even under these tense conditions. Trying to cut the boy some slack as a reward for his response, Snape shifted his head just slightly and raised an eyebrow expectantly at the flabbergasted redheads. Still twitchy with nerves, the twins seemed to take heart from Neville's bravery and stood just a little straighter, trying to meet Snape's eyes but quickly averting their focus to elsewhere on his face.

"Harry's not crazy." The Weasley not gripping Neville's shoulder blurted. "We know you think he is, but he's really just getting mixed signals from you and Voldemort and Dumbledore and…"

"It's confusing him. That's all." The more aggressive twin concluded, the fingers on Neville's shoulder shifting compulsively but not releasing him.

With only a slight movement of his head, Severus turned the full force of his glare at Longbottom, eyes burning with rage at the thought that he, a Gryffindor whom Severus had decided to trust, would go and tell the twins about his fears for Harry. Neville squeaked a little and hugged himself, his lips pressing together in both fear and grief at the thought of losing the man's trust. But the twins stepped forward, their own courage finally surfacing with the need to defend their friend.

"He didn't tell us." Said one, stepping in front of the other boy as if to guard him from the surely fatal power behind that glare.

"We used a listening device to track him, and when we realized that you were going to condemn Harry as insane…"

"We had to act, so we told Neville we were worried about Harry and there was something urgent we had to tell you. That's all."

Severus studied the boy for a moment, wondering why he continued to stare at his feet, never stepping back out of fear or freeing himself from the older boy's grasp. He paused a moment longer, watching the boy's trembling jaw and realizing that it wasn't natural. Severus Snape usually ignored his protective urges, but seeing his ally trapped and recognizing that touch for what it was, a new kind of anger bubbled to the surface. He shot forward with a snarl, and the sight of the tall man moving so quickly, shadowed face contorted ferociously, startled the boy into releasing his shoulder. Snape didn't hesitate to seize the freed child and wrench him away from his counterparts, pulling him back and apart from them roughly. Neville's trembling was fierce now, but the unnatural twitching had stopped, confirming Severus's suspicions.

"How dare you!" He roared, voice deep and loud enough to wake Harry with its rumble. "Do you realize how dangerous it is to put people under compulsions? If one thing went wrong, he could have gone brain dead, or developed a permanent tick at the least. Listening to things that don't concern you is bad enough, but at least it's _well-intentioned_ recklessness. Putting your friend under a compulsion, stripping him of his will and making him betray my trust, however, that's recklessness that could only be expected of the greatest fools."

All of them flinched as his words rained down on them, familiar with the intensity of their professor's unrestrained anger. The three boys looked alarmed at the thought of what might have happened, but Neville soon began to smile. He reached up and put a calming hand on the tall man's arm.

"Thank you for worrying about me, professor." He murmured, voice thick with relief and cheer at the thought of someone growing so ferocious on his behalf. "But if it was for Harry's sake…"

"What was for my sake?" the boy in question spoke up, his footsteps across the clearing having been hidden by the boom of his caretaker's anger.

Forgetting everything at the sight of their friend, the twins rushed at him as if to embrace him, remembering only at the last moment that he was likely traumatized and shouldn't be touched. Harry didn't look alarmed in the least, but watched with open curiosity as they halted right before him, hands twitching with the need to touch him and confirm his presence with their other senses, and finally settled for leaving the appendages to swing at their sides.

"It's good to see you, Harry." The nearest twin greeted gently.

"Well, it's good to see you two too, but what exactly are you doing here? You realize they're hunting us? If the Ministry catches you conspiring with us, your whole family will be in trouble!"

"And so will we!" Snarled Severus, leaving Neville standing behind him as he strode closer to the trio. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were watching all of you, waiting to see where you went to track us down. Harry, we'd best leave before daylight. Merlin knows these imbeciles could have led him directly to us."

Harry looked alarmed at the thought as he froze, his whole body seeming to turn to stone as he contemplated the return of his abuser. Some small part of him told him to calm down, insisting that they should go close their camp and leave immediately, but the majority of his mind was locked in place by fear. He could feel his heart rate speeding up as if from a long way away, and he knew that his chest had begun to heave enough that it would be noticeable to his companions. Seeing Harry consumed by panic, and familiar with the symptoms, Severus knew better than to let the other boys continue yelling his name at him to get his attention. Harry was distancing himself quickly, and panic would completely overtake him in only a minute if it was allowed to continue. Neville was still standing behind the rest of the group, hands clasped together helplessly as his own, much milder, panic began to shadow his mind. Severus was dimly aware of the other boy's state, multitasking abilities honed as both a teacher and death eater alerting him to his surroundings even as he plunged his own mind into Harry's.

Harry's mind, he had discovered through their practice sessions, was more like quicksand than the fortress of most trained minds. He guarded himself not, as most people Severus had known, by building walls around his memories, but rather by overwhelming intruders with flashes of small and, on the surface, meaningless memories that nevertheless meant a great deal to Harry. Intruders were likely to be pulled in by these, the kind of memories they expected to see, until they were overwhelmed by the sheer force of them and retreated, thinking themselves successful. In reality, however, one had to ride out wave after wave of these memories, knowing to push them aside or slip through them quickly, in order to reach Harry's consciousness, along with his truly secret memories. Severus quickly followed the shudders of panic flowing outward, sending ripples through the boy's entire consciousness, and buried it. It would still be there, but at least Harry would be able to retain self control through the haze of panic. Severus would be able to move him to safety more easily.

Fred, George, and a short-breathed Neville watched as the imposing man placed his hands on either side of their hero's face, staring into his eyes with his own dark gaze, until Harry's breathing suddenly calmed. His eyes were still glazed over, but he looked calmer, like he had just been given a potion. Severus ignored them as he guided Harry to the fire, instructing him to collect anything he wanted to keep even as he began to transfigure their bowls and benches back into stones. Finished with that part of the clean up, he snapped his fingers a couple of times to help activate his magic, sending the stones gathered around the fire pit flying into the surrounding trees. Harry collected the herbs they had stolen and put them in his trunk, tapping once on the lid to shrink it wandlessly, and stuffed it in his pocket. He didn't want anything else, which was unsurprising, and followed his teacher's example of transfiguring various things back into what they had been originally. He finished transfiguring a practice dummy back into a pile of debris and returned to the fire, from where Severus had been waiting for him to finish.

The three intruders watched this process with astonishment, being unfamiliar with the wandless prowess of either of the fugitives. Without the use of a wand, their classmate had just used both the shrinking spell and transfiguration, and he looked neither tired nor surprised by his accomplishment. Instead, his eyes remained clouded, and the twins began to suspect that whatever the man had done to Harry was similar to the compulsion he had just berated them for placing on Neville. They were both rather chagrined at the whole situation, in hindsight realizing that they would not have lost anything by waiting until the morning to drag Neville out of bed and seek Harry. They really hadn't intended to put anyone in danger, and they hadn't even considered that their presence might give away the location to the ministry. Neville had not considered the danger either, and though he knew he was not really at fault for the twins' actions, he felt as though it was his actions that had brought this panic upon the peaceful campsite. Snape took one last look over the clearing and doused the blue fire, sending them into darkness.

The moon's pale whiteness was shining, but without the supplementary light of the fire, the forest seemed full of unexpected dangers that they had failed to consider lurking in the shadows. What manner of forest was this? The trio began to imagine that the slightest gust of wind was caused by creatures moving within the darkness and subconsciously stepped closer to each other, seeking to shield themselves from the stirring of the air. Snape and Harry ignored them as they held out their hands and easily created large orbs of light, reestablishing the unearthly blue glow that putting out the fire had erased. For a moment the twins simply stared at the orbs, which were shocking not only because they had been created wandlessly, but also because they were the largest lumos orbs the twins had ever seen. Neville had seen this trick during a previous visit, and so did not suffer from the same shock as the twins. The light sparked inspiration in him, and he reached for his wand to add his own small lumos to the others.

"Stop." Severus hissed, seeing the movement and guessing at the child's intentions. "I take it you all intend to come with us?"

Fred and George nodded determinedly, darkened brows threatening to cause a fuss if the man objected. Neville nodded hesitantly. "Gran would be alerted if I came home this late anyway. Is it acceptable for us to go with you?"

"You shouldn't." Harry muttered. "You'll just be in more danger, especially if they're going to come after us."

"We should be fine if they don't use any magic. Only wandless magic is untraceable." Severus wanted Harry to be around people who cared about them, even if those people were blubbering fools. It was unlikely that the twins would be followed, and this move was more precautionary than anything. The former professor considered admitting such, but the chagrin still coloring the boys' faces stopped him. He would rather they suffered from the belief that they had endangered their friend, and acted more carefully in the future, than admit to an overreaction. Harry looked smaller than ever, being the shortest one among them, and Severus felt rather guilty for frightening him when he was already in such a fragile state. One twin whispered to the other, and they both snickered, distracting him briefly. Severus's lip curled. Never mind guilt, he thought, those damn Gryffindors were probably a danger to them all, and it was in Harry's best interests that he was frightened just to have them nearby.

"Come along then." Severus instructed, and they began walking.

He strode forward, content with the sound of eight feet behind him as he began moving through the forest in a random direction, not yet knowing where they would end their sudden journey. He was moving them to a new location within the same forest, wandlessly collapsing the wards around their old campsite and draping them around the party so that they would leave no footprints behind. Knowing the limited competencies of Aurors, Severus had prepared for such a necessity. The magical hunters could follow footprints, but relied on magic for tracking beyond that. Severus's wards were beyond them. Ideally, he would have liked to move to an entirely new location, but with such a hunt out for the pair, he did not yet know where a safe location might be. One pair of footsteps behind him grew fainter than the rest, and the man paused to investigate.

Neville and the twins automatically flinched when he looked at them, finding him even more intimidating than usual amidst the shadows of the dark forest. The tall man ignored them and focused his gaze on Harry, who was watching the ground, once again, as if unsure of his ability to walk without tripping, and had not noticed that the others had stopped. He was trailing along behind the group, calm but very unaware, incapable of functioning alertly with the veil Severus had placed over his mind. It was the only immediate solution he had though, and it was better than leaving the boy to a panic attack. Severus strode past the unwanted guests and reached Harry, took his wrist, and resumed his original pace forward.

Harry glanced up at him with dazed confusion when he felt his caretaker grasp his arm, blinked for a moment, and returned to gazing down. He kept pace with the older man, however, and the party resumed its journey without another delay. Neville gazed at their backs, his gaze sparkling with its usual warmth at the sight of their touching, confirming to himself once again that Harry had found a mighty protector in Severus Snape. The twins, still under the belief that the Slytherin was abusing their friend, stared at the point of contact with barely restrained anger. One sign of pain from Harry, or of inappropriate action from the professor, and they were ready to lift the wands grasped in their fists and whisk their friend away. But nothing of the sort occurred, which they suspected was because the man knew they were watching, and the group continued through the eerie, dark forest without a sound.

Severus wondered how long the Gryffindors would be able to last without breaking the silence, expecting it wouldn't take long. Sure enough, one of the twins was unable to bear the quiet, and asked in a low voice where it was they were going. Feeling rightfully annoyed at the boys for making this trip a necessity in the first place, Severus kept quiet. Normally the Gryffindors would have demanded answers, but because Harry was too out of it to have even reacted to their words, and because of the shadows moving in time with the cloudy sky far above them, even their abnormal courage failed them. It was a spooky night, the kind that would have been perfect for Halloween, and they felt as though disturbing the silence again would be asking for whatever menacing creatures that dwelled in the forest to come out and attack them. Neville was equally frightened, but, being Neville, was too terrified to even fathom doing more than placing one foot forward at a time, rhythmically forcing himself to push through the darkness and will it away.

The two orbs of light bobbing through the air at the front of the party were not comforting in the least either, as they resembled ethereal creatures themselves, and provided just enough light to keep the shadows around them shifting at their every motion. Severus ignored the shadows, instead peering ahead with an assured confidence that was comforting only to the boy at his side, looking for a clearing or cave or something that could serve as their new campsite. As the group walked into the early morning hours, the temperature continued to drop. The members of the party unskilled in wandless magic began to shiver as dew settled onto the forest, seeping into their clothes until even their skin was damp and clammy, like cold sweat that lingers after a long run. Severus briefly considered warming them, but decided to let them endure, knowing that the cold would cause no lasting harm and wanting them to suffer just a little more for making this trip necessary in the first place. He made sure that Harry had cast the charm on himself, however, and cast an extra charm of his own to make sure the boy didn't overpower himself with warmth.

Severus despised Gryffindors for many reasons, the least of which was their annoying tendency toward arrogance. As a teacher, it was his duty not only to provide instruction in potions, but also to help his students develop the proper mindset they needed to face the world. In Slytherin, he took naturally mistrustful and ambitious children and taught them how to live in a world of manipulation, how create alliances and trust the help of others despite their wary natures. That was the purpose of a House, to turn weaknesses into strengths and overcome vulnerabilities. But Gryffindor always failed its students; it took children who were inclined toward martyrdom and rage and deceived them by telling them that those were good qualities. It exacerbated weaknesses, taught its students to encourage each other to take extreme risks, to diminish the value of their own lives in the face of grand ideals that meant nothing if you ignored their underlying rage to begin with. By leaving them to suffer the cold, some part of Severus hoped that the lesson would tame them a bit; it would remind them of their own mortality and make them just a little more cautious when they were thinking about doing something reckless again.

Children weren't that different when they came to Hogwarts with only 11 years of life experience to their names. They could be lumped into four categories; those sorted into Slytherin were mistrustful of others, those in Hufflepuff were too naïve, those in Ravenclaw either too afraid of failure or too socially challenged, and those in Gryffindor, the worst of the lot, lacked self-worth. It was Hogwarts that determined whether they stayed that way. Severus certainly wasn't inclined to help the other houses, but, being a teacher, some part of him was always looking for lessons that he could teach those ne'er-do-wells. His lessons, he thought, were a bit more practical than the rest of those offered at Hogwarts. He glanced over at his charge again, checking for signs of panic or exhaustion breaking through, and nodded to himself when he saw that the boy was faring well. He was perfectly capable of looking after a child when he wanted to, it was clear, and his own experiences had prepared him to deal with a victim like Harry.

It wasn't all that surprising, with his luck, that Severus had picked up additional strays from the house with the most problems. He was aware of Neville shivering behind him, and began to feel a tad guilty for making the boy suffer; it was like refusing to play with a persistent puppy when you were annoyed with it, even though you knew that it would never be mad at you. He twitched his pinky finger backward in the boy's direction and sent warming magic washing over him. Neville stopped in his surprise, reveling in the unexpected warmth, and correctly guessed who had cast the charm on him.

"Thank you, Professor." He spoke in a half-whisper, afraid to disturb the stillness, and let his arms fall from where he had been rubbing them warm.

The twins glanced at their friend as he resumed walking behind them, wearing questioning expressions that suggested they thought he was mad for the display of gratitude. Severus huffed, exasperated at the the mere presence of bumbling stupidity they filled the air with, but said nothing. The boys took his exasperation as a signal that they were permitted to begin noisemaking, to the man's dismay, and began competing to see which of them could sound the most aggrieved. Grinding his teeth, Severus decided to ignore their decidedly immature display of arrogance instead of expending the energy to silence them. They walked on for hours in only a couple of minutes, and the tired man was nearly at the end of his patience when Harry let out a small giggle from beside him. It said something about the state of the group that every one of them stopped at the small sound and waited, gazes riveted to the back of the small boy's head, to see whether another sound would follow. Sure enough, Harry continued to chuckle, voice soft and musical like the trickle of water over stones.

The orb of light floating in front of him bobbed up and down in time with his laughter, making the shadows around them dance in sync with Harry's joy. Suddenly, the forest didn't seem nearly as frightening as it had before; it was neither big nor full of enemies, and instead it was merely a backdrop, a setting meant to change and reflect their moods. With only a sound, Harry had reestablished himself as the center of their worlds, and everything was brighter for it. Severus carefully probed at the boy's mind, and found, to his pleasure, that his student had regained complete control of himself. There was plenty of pain and wariness and alarm, but it was tinted strongly with the love the boy felt for the people around him.

Severus felt the goodwill infecting his mind as well. Without thinking too much, he magnanimously granted the twins warmth in exchange for the warmth they had sparked in their housemate. They glanced around in confusion, but didn't bother to question it in their distraction. Back to his senses, Harry began asking the twins about their joke shop, listening attentively and laughing at all the right times as they regaled him with tales of disastrous negotiations and friendly pranks on the neighboring stores. The conversation continued even as Severus found a grove of trees suitable for taking shelter in and began to set up camp. The unwanted guests ignored him as he did most of the work, but Harry, he was pleased to note, had the decency to begin creating a fire pit where they had settled, transfiguring benches out of pine needles and bark so that they would not have to sit in the itchy grass.

Finished casting new wards, Severus settled down in the empty space the boys had left beside Harry, and without a thought to the child's personal space, he let his elbow brush against a small arm. He was cruelly satisfied at the flicker of consternation that crossed the redheads' faces at the sight, but he gave no sign of it as he nodded in response to the boy's careful smile. He knew Harry was just caught up in the moment, and would likely return to his suspicious, traumatized shell after a good night's sleep, but it was something of a relief to see traces of happiness in his eyes after so long. It was if rain had just washed away long-accumulated dust from an old fern, and the leaves were again vibrant and glimmering with life.

Something dark had risen in the twins at the sight of Harry trusting Snape, however, and they made a decision that they quickly came to regret. They didn't know the man too well, for all of the hours they had spent in his classroom, but they knew him well enough to understand that Harry was confiding in the wrong person. Harry should be trusting them, instead — they had understood that he wasn't crazy. With great satisfaction, they set off a series of flashy firecrackers in the forest around them, delighting in the series of small explosions bursting through the air and getting gradually closer to them. Severus reacted to the noise by pulling Harry to him and casting a shield charm in front of them. Then, after casting a homing charm that was meant for moving targets, he fired a series of stunners and quickly put a stop to the assault. The twins were shocked, never having seen Snape react to a prank with quite such efficiency. Neville broke the silence with a small whimper, attracting everyone's attention.

"Neville, don't be scared." One of the twins soothed before he could help himself, sympathetic as they all were to the boy's obvious fear.

"That's right. They were just firecrackers. We wanted to fool Snape a little, is all."

Neville took several deep breaths and calmed himself, but for every breath that settled Neville, Severus took another one that fed his anger. He stood, dark eyes and snarling face freezing them all with its rage, the likes of which they had never seen from him before. Suddenly, he wheeled about and the light flickered, the force of his anger threatening to extinguish the fire in the pit between them. They watched him warily, trembling as he let his black cloak settle around him until they could see little more than his eyes, hard and menacing as they imagined one of those scary forest creatures might be. Then, without a word, he whirled about the rest of the way and walked out of the clearing, not stomping like an angry teenager, but with enough force that they knew following him would bring about their early deaths.

"He didn't have to get so mad." One of the twins muttered weakly as he disappeared and left them in darkness.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So I intended this to be complete Severus POV, but the twins have sort of been asserting themselves throughout. This is likely to happen more often, as there are more characters together than there were earlier on, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As before, if you review and **specifically request **a drabble with a topic (related to this story) of your choice, I'll be happy to write it for you!

Even if you don't want one, please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	11. Their Desperation: Ron

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Ron wasn't certain that he was a very good friend; he could still enjoy life without Harry around. It was only when the silence fell that he realized that he was thinking too much about himself.

Chapter 11: Their Desperation

They met at ten in the morning on Saturday. It was far later than either of them had wanted, but it was the earliest that Ron was able to escape from the house without upsetting his mother. He walked up to Hermione from across the street, and her eyes brightened when she saw him, alight with slow-burning determination. She began walking and he fell into step beside her, letting her take his arm and squeeze it. He had grown over the past year, and when he glanced at her now out of the corners of his eyes, all he could see was the top of her head where she had tilted it toward him. It was a sweltering summer day, and he could feel the heat of her skin as she pressed against him amidst the London crowds.

The indistinct buzzing of the masses was a welcome alternative to the uncommon silence of the house with only two children in it. The company was better too. The thought made him smile and he glanced down at the girl beside him again, noting the large bag she held slung over her other shoulder, bulky with awkward edges, and surely loaded with books. He paused and she turned to see why he had stopped, a mixture of exasperation and curiosity twisting her face.

"Let me take that." Ron said, reaching out before she could argue and transferring the black bag from her shoulder to his own. As he'd thought, it was heavy.

Hermione scowled at him. "I was doing fine." She insisted, as he had known she would. She was always determined to prove her strength, preferring to work herself to exhaustion than to request a break before everyone else.

He just smiled at her and she rolled her eyes, telling herself that it was masculine childishness and she should just put up with it. It was best to let Hermione think she was humoring him; he had won many a battle that way, and had long since decided that making her admit defeat was much less rewarding than getting his way without her objecting. Victory, he told himself, came not from defeating opponents, but from knowing deep inside you that everything was as it should be. The familiar competition with her put him at ease, and all of the tension that had kept him from sleep the night before bled out of him. He was usually bursting with energy in these situations, but something George had said stuck with him; it was time for calm-and-strategic Ron to make his first appearance.

They walked on through the crowd until they reached the ministry entrance. Something in the air changed tangibly as they stepped into the phone booth, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the booth as they shut the door, leaving it stale and suffocating as they punched in the entry number. There was a rusty squeak and a jerk, followed by a flash of light as the muggle world around them vanished, and then they were at the ministry, and it was hard to breathe for a different reason. Ron took a deep breath, ignoring the tremor of his nerves and pushing his anticipation away, reminding himself to be calm. They entered legally, approaching the rodent-faced desk clerk that had worked there since he was little and still smiled at the boy she called Weasley jr., likely because she couldn't remember his name. They had their wands checked and, just like that, they had entered. Hermione stood ramrod straight beside him, clearly uncomfortable in spite of herself with the knowledge that they would be snooping around a government building.

"Relax." Ron murmured, feeling almost high off of his calm, and pressed a hand to her arm to guide her down the left hallway.

She grunted at him in irritation for pointing out her nerves and shook her arm to brush him off, casting a quick glance at the bag still slung over his shoulder before looking deliberately ahead of her. Their shoes pattered loudly as they made their way over blue and white tiles, passed uniform wooden doors with only gold numbering to distinguish between them, and finally came to the end of the hallway where they found a wide door with "Archives" written in shiny letters above it.

Hermione reached out to knock on the door, but before her fist could touch the wood, it opened with a swish of air, forcing them to step back behind it and out of the way. Two men stepped out of the room: one, Ron did not recognize, but the other, he knew in an instant. The unmistakable sound of a cane tapping the floor, even if he hadn't noticed the long blonde hair, would have given him away. Practiced in eavesdropping, he and Hermione slowed their breathing and listened, knowing they would be spotted if they leaned forward even half an inch. Ron waited serenely, still at peace and ready to prove himself in the midst of unexpected danger.

"Bumbling idiots." Growled the unknown man, "They've got the best resources in the country, and they still can't train their people to resist interrogation."

"Nor to track down a missing schoolboy and his professor." Observed Lucius Malfoy, voice as silky and thick as the heat in the air outside. "Nor, apparently, to prevent yet more schoolchildren from meddling where they don't belong."

The door to the archives swung shut, leaving Hermione and Ron exposed to the Death Eaters, who peered at them with the satisfaction of cats after a hunt. In full view, Ron could see that the men were dressed in casual robes, covering their arms even in the summer heat. The stranger wore an old top hat in mockery of the muggles he had killed.

Malfoy had always looked like the kind of man who kidnapped children off the street, but the lazy smile on his face changed the way the shadows fell on it to emphasize the movement of his muscular jaw and neck. He towered above both them and his companion, the combination of muscle and girly hair doing nothing to make him less threatening.

When the smaller man stepped forward, though, the Gryffindors forgot all about Malfoy.

"Hello, children." He croaked joyfully, flashing his yellow teeth at them.

He had seemed like the unremarkable sort who didn't attract attention to himself, but as he advanced on them, Ron felt instinctively that that the bald, hunchbacked man was the most dangerous kind of enemy.

"I can play with them, can't I Malfoy?" He sung, drawing his wand without waiting for an answer and continuing his advance.

The aura of violence emanating from the man reminded Ron of Bellatrix, he realized, and that was what made him so intimidating. He was the kind of monster that couldn't be reasoned with.

Ron knew that he was terrified, but it was a very small, far away part of him. He was still strategic Ron, and strategic Ron had no room in his mind for panic; his entire mind was occupied with figuring out as many escape strategies as possible. His mind raced faster than he could remember it racing ever before, imagining what would happing if he just attacked, if they ran into the archives room and tried to lock the door, if they called for help…

Hermione growled from beside him, the rumble low in her throat and likely not even audible to the men advancing on them with absolute confidence that they would catch their prey. He saw the short man lift his wand in slow motion and knew it was time to act.

"Run!" He yelled, shoving Hermione forward and lunging at the man, his full weight only just managing to knock the wand hand aside as Hermione took off.

He moved to flee behind her when he felt something red hot wrap around his ankle and pull him to the floor. Pain burst throughout his back at the impact and he looked up, wincing through the spots in his vision to find the man looming over him grinning maniacally. The death eater, whose hat had fallen when Ron attacked him, wore a dark mark imprinted on the back of his skull that stretched around to the sides of his face, tendrils of black ink writhing as if trying to wrap around the rest of his head.

"That wasn't very nice." The man told him, though it sounded like he didn't care one way or the other.

Ron shuddered. Strategic Ron fled, leaving wild panic in his place. Down the hall a wall shattered and a female yelled. He strained his eyes to see whether Hermione was hurt, but was interrupted when the death eater shoved his face close to Ron's. His breath was bitter and wet, and, Ron imagined, exactly what evil was supposed to smell like.

"You shouldn't look away from the guy about to carve you up, boy. It's very rude." The man said.

Something stupid and brave prompted Ron to retort: "And you're the supreme example of courtesy, are you?"

The man threw back his head and laughed for approximately five seconds before his head snapped back into place, his eyes mad and filled with more violence than Ron had ever seen concentrated in one person. Leather squeaked as the man replaced his wand in the holster at his side drew a jagged-looking knife so quietly that Ron felt that knives, not wands, were the man's specialty. His pulse raced as he swallowed, eyes locked onto the blade waving at him mockingly. The man's smile returned.

"That's better." He said, and brought the knife toward Ron's face.

"Waitwaitwait!" Ron yelled, struggling to pull away from the crazy man. His heart pounded in his ears as reason fled and he begged for his life. "You don't have to do this, you've caught me! I won't run, I swear!"

"Boy, the last thing you'll want to do when I'm through with you is run." The knife hovered above his forehead, poised to strike. "Let me explain how this works. I hurt you, and you do whatever I want so that I don't do it any more."

The knife came down.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When he woke up, Ron noticed first that it was dark, and then that his right eye was throbbing. He couldn't see or hear anything in the room around him, but he could feel cool sheets and a pillow under his head, so he assumed that he was safe. He remembered the knife and shuddered, pulling his knees into his chest and lowering his head against them, trying to block out the image in his mind.

The more he thought about it — and what else could he do, really, in this dark room — the more his eye throbbed, until he realized that it wasn't just throbbing, but actually hurt very badly. The bitter scent of the man's breath still filled his nose, and Ron had to fight back a burn in the back of his throat as bile filled it. He would remember that scent for the rest of his life.

He thought about Hermione and leapt out of bed, completely forgetting the pain in his eye.

"Hermione!" He yelled, stumbling as he felt around for the wall. He found it, and had just started to walk forward when there was a knife-like crack of light across the room, and Ron knew that he was really still in danger and threw himself to the floor, hiding behind the bed.

The light grew bigger as a door swung open, and he noted as he winced at the brightness that only one of his eyes had responded to the light. Hermione appeared in the doorway, her head swiveling as she searched for him. His mother appeared and blocked out more of the light.

Ron stood up. "I'm glad you're okay." He said, and Hermione shrieked, leaping back and bumping into his mother, who kept her balance and stopped Hermione from falling over.

"Don't scare me like that, Ronald." The girl gasped, pressing a hand to her chest and staring at him without any real anger.

"Sorry." He told her, dutifully, and sat back down on the bed submissively like sick people were supposed to.

His mother, unable to hold back any longer, rushed into the room and wrapped him in her arms. "My baby!" She cried, pressing her chest against him far too hard.

"Mum, it's okay. I'm fine." He groused, trying to pull away for air. "What happened?"

She fell silent at that, releasing him and averting her eyes sorrowfully. She only got shifty like that when there was something she didn't want to tell him, and Ron had a strong idea that it was related to the line of pain over his eye that throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

"Your eye, Ron." Hermione told him gently, moving to his bedside and taking one of his hands in hers. "It was…sliced. The healers had to take it out."

"Oh." Ron murmered, having expected something like that. "What about you? I heard an explosion."

Hermione stared at him for a moment as though she couldn't believe how easily he had accepted the news, then fell weakly to her knees.

"Hermione!" Ron cried, leaning past his mom and over the edge of his bed to look at her with his one eye. She looked up at him with tears on her face, peering at him from behind her hair with big, brown eyes glistening in the light from the hallway. "What's wrong? What happened?"

She shook her head, trying to compose herself, and took a few shuddering breaths. "I… Malfoy followed me, knocked down a couple of walls, but I'm fine. I got cut a little from the debris, but I kept running all the way down the hall. He killed the lady at the reception desk when I asked her for help, but there were some aurors coming in right then so he left before they saw him."

"It was horrible." She whispered as Ron felt a pang of grief for the receptionist: even though she never remembered his name, she always smiled at him, and she used to give him candy when he was little. "But what happened to you was worse!"

A memory rose unbidden, _the agony of a knife sawing through his eye_, and he pushed it away. "Who found me?"

"The aurors who scared off Malfoy. I told them we were attacked and you were still back there, and they went and got you. The man who hurt you got away and injured two of them. The ministry is going to question Malfoy, because there's a record of them entering together, but they probably won't do anything about him."

"Well, damn." Ron sighed, not knowing what else to say.

"Language, Ronald!" Both women chastised, and he laughed at them.

The healers told him later that they put in a fake eye, non-functional as that's all his family could afford, and asked if he wanted to keep the scar. Ron took one look at the jagged white line stretching from his forehead to his nose and refused to have it removed — it would serve as a reminder, he said, that being calm did not mean he was safe, and that meddling with death eaters was very dangerous. Secretly, he kept it to remind him that he could have lost Hermione that day.

The two of them refused to explain what they'd been doing at the archives, lied that it was for a research project of Hermione's, and left it at that. But at least they knew that the ministry hadn't found Harry yet. Hermione mourned that the last of their leads had been a dead end, but Ron knew better. He had told Hermione what George told him about Harry and Snape, but he refused to let her pester them about it.

She sat on his bedside an hour before he was allowed to leave, her head lowered as she pondered how to persuade him to bother the twins. He gazed at the smooth, bare wall and readied himself for the assault. Hermione didn't say anything for what felt like forever, and he finally turned back to see what she was doing. She was still sitting on the white sheets, watching him from behind her hair with eyes ready to declare battle. She didn't say anything, even as her gaze met his and forced him to look away.

"We need to find him." Ron acknowledged, unable to bear the weight of her stare. He knew that she would seek the twins regardless of what he said. She had been through too much, was too lost without Harry, to do anything else.

"That's right." She agreed, dropping her gaze to her hands. She was wearing a pink t-shirt that hugged her chest quite nicely, he noticed as he followed her gaze down to her hands and back up to her face. "There's no room for hesitation."

The silence stretched out between them, as it always did when Harry was gone, and Ron felt the irresistible need to confess. "Part of me didn't want to look anymore." He admitted, expecting a cry of rage or something from the girl beside him. She stayed silent, and he continued. "When I woke up alive after than man cut my eye out, I… I was so relieved to be safe, and to see you safe, that I didn't want us to put ourselves in danger again. For a minute I thought that we could be happy without him. I'm…a terrible friend, Hermione."

"You aren't." She said. "Everyone has parts of themselves that think things like that sometimes. You aren't a bad person for wanting to be safe. What makes you a good person is that you won't give up on him, that you hesitated and doubted, but you decided to go after him again anyway."

"Thanks, Hermione." Ron told her hesitantly, believing her only because she had said it so quickly, so articulately, that it sounded like it must be true. He tried to return the favor and set a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Let's find him before Snape does too much damage."

She trembled a little, but quickly recovered herself and pushed his hand away, pressing her lips together as if to prove just how still she could make them. It was childish, but endearing, and Ron knew in that moment that he was madly in love with her. He wondered if he should tell her.

"I still don't think we should pester the twins." He said instead.

She stared at him in disbelief, jaw working up and down as she grasped for words. "Why not?"

"I don't want to put Harry in any more danger, and I know that if anyone can make the twins talk, it's you."

For a moment, he prepared himself to be hit again, but then she melted, and her eyes watered again, and before he knew it her arms were around him and there was a bundle of warmth trying, futilely, to shield him from all of the evils in the world. He put a hand on the back of her head, marveling at how tiny it was underneath all that hair, and their roles reversed as suddenly as they had been established. Suddenly, he was the one shielding her.

She needed Harry, he realized. This wasn't just about protecting their friend; she was searching for her own sake, too. That, more than anything, won him over.

"Fine, fine, I get it. Let's go find the twins."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The twins weren't at their shop at all over the next few days, and Ron began to worry that someone had found out what they knew about Harry and done something to them. He was rocking back and forth on an old chair in his room when he became aware of hushed voices echoing from downstairs one evening, and he knew his mother was telling yet another one of his siblings about his eye. The stairs creaked as he walked down them toward the noise, seeing his mom and the twins in the hallway, all looking very solemn. For some reason, nobody believed that he wasn't torn up over the loss of his eye.

They fell silent as he walked over to them, a little chilly from his bare feet on the cold floor.

"Hi there." He greeted their stares. "I've been looking for you."

The twins looked at each other and he felt five again, helplessly lonely because he didn't have friends his age like they did. They didn't know what to say to him, so Ron sighed and put on his thin-soled shoes, gesturing for them to follow him out of the house where the females of the family couldn't eavesdrop. They walked out into the yard, where summer flowers and shrubs grew so thickly around the old fence that it seemed like they were the only thing holding it up.

"Ronald, be careful!" their mother called, to his exasperation.

He grinned at his brothers as they passed through the well-maintained white gate to the road. "It's not like I'm suddenly an invalid because I lost an eye."

"No." One of them agreed quietly, and Ron got the feeling that they did not completely believe him.

He rolled his eyes and scanned the gravel road and the grass beside it. There were no lights along the road, so darkness pressed in close to them, leaving both sides of the road indiscernible. They could have been walking along a mountain ridge without knowing it, it was so dark. He knew this road as well as their house, however, and knew exactly how far to walk to take them to the grassy hillside where local children would play in the daytime. They were right below the Lovegoods' house, where the moonlight glinted off of uncommonly shiny windows on the top of the hill.

"Where have you been?" Ron asked, folding his arms to fight off a chill from the breeze.

"We were…away on business." Lied the boy on the right, not needing to avoid eye contact because it was too dark to see his brother even a few feet away.

"Right." Ron snorted. "Make up whatever excuses you need to, but listen to me. I _need _to see Harry. I don't care how it happens, but it should be soon."

"Ron, about your eye —"

"Damn it!" Ron snapped, throwing his arms down to his sides. "All of this about my freaking eye! Yes, it was painful, yes, it's hard to sleep without thinking about lying in that same position with a knife sawing through my face, and yes, that monster's still out there. There's nothing any of us can do about that right now, so please drop it."

The twins sighed at his outburst. "That's not what we were going to say, Ron."

"Actually, we were going to say that that's a wicked cool scar —"

"And that if you never win Hermione over that at least you'll be able to attract more ladies —"

"With that warrior look. But I must admit that it's nice —"

"To know that your temper is still intact and that you're as whiny as ever."

"Oh." Ron mumbled, putting his hands in his pockets and feeling embarrassed. "That's different then."

"As for Harry, George and I were all prepared to fend you off but —"

"In light of your latest adventure, he'll want to see that you're safe so badly that it outweighs the downside of facing you."

"What were you doing at the Ministry anyway?"

Ron wasn't sure what to respond to first, or how he'd become the one under interrogation. "We were information hunting. We know for sure now that the Ministry has no clue where Harry is."

"Marvelous news!" Fred crowed, obviously trying to ease the tense mood among them. "Now maybe we can visit Harry without Snape looking ready to murder us."

"Unlikely, Fred." George said, "Since we probably look ready to murder him whenever we see him too."

"Speaking of Snape, is there anything I should know?" Ron interrupted, curious about what prank had incurred Snape's wrath but knowing how his brothers could go on if allowed to yammer without restraint.

"That's something we'd best ask Harry. I don't want him to scold us again for doing things we're not supposed to. He's good at guilt-tripping."

"Almost better than mom, actually."

"We'll talk to him and get permission for you and Hermione to visit. I doubt he'll refuse to see you when we tell him you lost an eye trying to find him."

"Don't tell him." Ron interrupted. "Don't tell him why we were there."

"He'll want to know." His brothers looked down at him, arms folded as though they were mirror images of each other. They were wearing short sleeves, he noted absently, and had apparently developed some muscle since the beginning of the summer.

"But there are ways to tell him without making him feel responsible for it." Ron informed them. "And that's best left to Hermione and me. Well, mostly Hermione. "

They grinned at him, then, in such perfect unison that even Ron found it creepy. He knew they had some sort of telepathic connection, but he wondered at the extent of it. Did they rehearse these things?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A day later, with their visit properly announced, the twins brought Ron and Hermione to see Harry. Ron hadn't known quite what to expect, but when they found themselves in a spacious forest, of all places, he was relieved. Harry wasn't being cramped into a tiny safe house somewhere; he got to stay in the woods all the time instead. Hermione didn't seem to share his perspective. She tossed her head from side to side in search of identifying features, likely so that she could come back whenever she chose.

"They're just ahead." Fred announced, gesturing them slightly to the right and past a couple of thick trees that looked the same as every other tree in the forest. Ron wondered if Hermione would be able to identify the passage by the patterns in the bark; he squinted at the trees, but couldn't see anything that he would retain to mark the way.

They entered a campsite just past the trees, which were not actually a passageway. Instead of a clearing as he had expected, Ron saw a low fire and transfigured benches sitting right there in the forest, strewn without any apparent reason among the trees. It would certainly be hard to find such a campsite, which wasn't much of a campsite at all. He looked around for Harry and blinked, uncomprehending of what he saw. Something in the back of his head told him that there were people there, but he couldn't see them. Every time his gaze passed over the campers, he knew he had spotted them, but kept turning his head, searching for them and forgetting that he had just seen them.

"Wards." One of the twins said, pushing him forward and through them so that he could focus his gaze on the campers. "They're designed to make you look away from the people here, though they don't disguise the campsite at all. Actually, it's quite complex; there are several different layers, and that one's just the first…"

Ron wasn't listening. One by one, the visitors stepped through the wards behind him and stopped mid-step, trying to comprehend the scene before them.

Harry was lying on his stomach underneath Snape, who pinned him in place with an arm around his waist. Harry _whimpered _as Snape rubbed against him, his other hand inside the Gryffindor's robes and fondling him. As he understood what was going on, Ron felt heat rising around his ears until it reached a peak, erupting inside his head like a volcano.

Hermione gasped beside him as he blasted the man off of his friend, whose eyes shot open in response to the force of the blow. Instead of leaping up or looking for the source of the blast, as Ron would have expected of him, Harry clenched his eyes shut again and waited, pale and trembling, as if he expected another blow to fall on him. Hermione rushed ahead and stumbled to her knees beside their friend, wrapping her arms around him and whispering to him in an urgent voice.

Confident that Harry was being seen to, Ron strode forward and leapt at Snape, punching him across the face as hard as he could. Snape's cheek turned red where he had struck, but the man didn't fight back. He looked up at Ron with eyes as unresponsive as a corpse's, so Ron hit him again.

"How dare you!" He snarled, digging his knee into the man's diaphragm. "I'm going to kill you!"

He meant it, too. In that instant Ron resigned himself to becoming a murderer because it was the right thing, the only thing, that he could do to erase the memory of Harry's pale and shaken face from his mind. Not even Voldemort had been able to put such fear into the other boy's eyes and he had to erase it, to do something and put Harry right before it was too late and he would never be the stabilizing force that Ron and Hermione needed in their lives. Something grabbed him from behind, yanking him off of Snape. "Stop it, Ron!" He heard Neville call frantically as he struggled to free himself.

Too angry to question why Neville had suddenly appeared, Ron continued to throw his body weight back against his captor, trying to get himself released. His fist struck Neville's nose in the struggle, but the other boy didn't release him.

Dazed, Snape sat up and looked around, eyes finding Harry a few feet away from him and settling there. "Don't you dare get near him!" Ron screamed, shoulders burning where Neville held them in place with both his arms and his legs.

Harry, face bruised, frowned at Snape with fearful eyes, pressing himself backward into the safety of Hermione's arms. The twins stood helplessly where they had stopped upon entering the clearing, watching the events unfold without interfering. Seeing Harry terrified, something flickered in Snape's eyes and he spun around with a growl, cloak swishing behind him as he fled the clearing. With Snape gone, Neville released Ron, who almost chased after the man but decided that Harry needed him more.

"Is this what you meant when you said Snape was hurting him!" Ron roared, uncontrollable rage bouncing around in search of a target as he turned on his brothers. "How could you just let this happen if you knew about it? What kind of friends _are _you?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Writing Ron's POV is strange, both because he's the most normal of the lot and because he's so much more action-oriented that the others. At least, he's supposed to be! Next chapter will be Harry's POV again, so it should be an interesting contrast.

Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	12. Their Confrontation: Multi

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Harry knew how to be strong; Dumbledore gave him the key. All that was left now was to twist it and lock away his weakness forever.

Chapter 12: Their Confrontation

_Just before Ron entered the campsite…_

Harry almost missed the swish and tap of a smooth wand in his hands as he practiced what Snape told him were called Shortcuts. Instead of channeling emotion every time you performed wandless magic, he said, you could practice certain spells enough that your magic memorized chosen movements in place of wand motions. Harry held his body perfectly still and tossed his chin back, trying to simultaneously focus his desire to be free and liberate himself from the ropes binding him to the tree.

He had decided that, in the event that he was too injured to focus and unable to use his hands, he should be able to just tilt his head to escape captivity. As the ropes slackened and he pulled his hands free, Harry sighed. His wrists were chafed from the ropes that had held him on and off for most of the day, and he still hadn't been able to free himself without using regular wandless magic. Shortcuts were supposed to take a lot of practice for magic to memorize, but Harry had thought that his patience would outlast it.

After less than a day, though, he craved a return to the usual routine. To spend all of his time memorizing shortcuts required him and Snape to put a temporary stop to their other lessons, and Harry missed being able to just sit and listen, absorbing information like quicksand with his newfound mental discipline. He felt restless, as though any distance from his rescuer disturbed his mental balance. Neville was visiting again, but Snape had ordered him to leave Harry alone while he practiced, so the plump boy settled by the campfire with his summer homework. Harry could just glimpse him through the trees, astonishingly still and hunched over on a wooden bench, working diligently at an essay.

With a sigh, Harry sat back against the tree and focused his magic to retie the ropes, wincing as they pinched his tender skin. If Neville was still working after all of this time, then Harry could continue as well. He heard Snape's footsteps — bursts of noise followed by silence — from the other side of him. The man had been practicing against practice dummies all day, and if Harry hadn't brought him lunch he would probably never have stopped to eat. It was intimidating to approach the professor, who leapt and ducked and incapacitated training dummies without so much as a visible spell, sweating and unstoppable. He merely grunted at Harry and accepted his food, as reticent as usual.

Harry had finally told him about Voldemort's horcruxes, unable to keep such critical information to himself at a time when he might never be able to take advantage of it. Despite being used to cages, first with the Dursleys then in Sirius's home and Hogwarts, Harry now found staying in the same place unbearable. Some migratory instinct in him pushed for progress, urged him to occupy himself so that he wouldn't have to think. He wanted Snape to let him hunt them, but the man merely explained more advanced wandless techniques and refused to say more on the matter.

Harry jerked his chin and imagined the ropes coming loose, wondering if he was finally feeling a tingle of magic along his spine, but nothing happened. He tried again, futilely, and jerked at the ropes to see if he had at least loosened them. Nothing.

His sleeves unrolled and slid down his arms in response to the movement, but his annoyance at the occurrence made it easy for him to magic them back up again. They tightened around his shoulders, chastised, and stayed still. Harry smiled, feeling a surge of confidence at the cloth's obedience. He jerked his chin, but again nothing happened. He scowled, berated himself for doing it wrong, and tugged at the ropes until they dug into his skin, punishing him for the failure.

"You really shouldn't do that." A flat voice warned from beside him, sounding pained.

Harry tensed at the unexpected sound, then brought his arms back to his sides so that the ropes were no longer cutting him. "Sorry, sir." he whispered, heart pounding his chest as he wondered if today would be the day that Snape finally stopped pretending he wouldn't hurt him.

"It's yourself that you should be apologizing to." Snape said wearily, and Harry understood that the man did not mean that literally. The ropes slackened as Snape walked over to him, gently lifting his arms into the light to examine the reddened skin there. He blew on the wounds, which stung from the air before unblemished skin stretched over the them and healed, leaving unmarred skin behind.

Harry wondered whether it was Dumbledore or Voldemort who had hurt Snape so much that he developed a Shortcut for healing wounds.

"Did you not think to heal yourself?" The man asked.

Harry shook his head, embarrassed that he hadn't even considered doing something about the wounds, thinking that they were a necessary part of training to be strong. Dumbledore had always liked it when he hurt, and Harry had learned that he must be like a stone — immobile and unbreakable. Snape wanted him to be weak, and Harry knew how to act out what people expected of him; he'd done it all the time for Ron and Hermione.

The thought of his friends reminded him that they were expecting visitors soon, and he looked up at Snape curiously. "Sir, why did you agree to let the twins bring Ron and Hermione here?" It was dangerous to ask questions, but Harry was still supposed to pretend that he believed Snape was helping him, so he allowed the risk.

"You wanted to see them." The man responded in the gentle voice he'd been assuming lately, pushing himself to his feet and pulling Harry with him. He didn't even come up to the Slytherin's shoulders.

"But couldn't the ministry be watching them, too?" Harry wondered, trying to ignore the feeling of fingers gripping his arm. _The headmaster catches him alone in the hallway on his way to dinner and grips him firmly by the arm. 'Come with me.' he orders, and Harry misses dinner that day._

"That is irrelevant if you go mad because you're in a new environment." Snape informed him carefully, as if he didn't expect Harry to understand him. Harry avoided eye contact, not because he feared for his mind, but because eye contact with the man always awakened too many emotions for him to confront.

"_Am_ I going mad, sir?" He asked, remembering the twins trying to defend his sanity, which he hadn't even realized was in question. Harry's head started to buzz.

"You're calling me of all people sir." The man responded, raising an eyebrow at him. "That speaks of insanity to me."

"Fred and George say I'm just confused." Harry informed the man, unwilling to let him evade the subject with friendly humor. If there was something wrong with him, Harry wanted to know about it.

"If those morons are to be believed, then you're confused because everyone's hurting you, and you expect that I still mean you harm." Snape didn't even look at him, but his posture was questioning.

"You don't hurt me, though." Harry observed. "You're allowed to but you don't."

"Haven't we been over this? Nobody has the right to hurt you, not Dumbledore and not me, just like he didn't have the right to hurt me back when I was your age either."

Harry had forgotten, yet again, that Snape was a victim. He had trouble reconciling the tall, dark man who could radiate such ill will that even Mrs. Norris avoided him with a boy who would ride on the headmaster's lap. It seemed nearly impossible that he had once been like Harry, that Harry might one day grow up into an adult who made demands on others, who was normal enough that he could be selfish and openly annoyed without being punished for it.

He and Snape had things in common too, though, Harry mused through the static in his mind. They were both good at hiding things and assuming masks appropriate for a certain situation, even if they secretly wanted to act differently than the situation demanded.

The buzz made it harder and harder to think, and before he knew it the dark-haired man was pushing him to the ground and pressing their bodies together. Harry whimpered instinctually as Snape's hand slid under his robes, leaving trails of ice wherever his fingers touched. Relieved, Harry let sensation wash over him. He didn't know why the man changed his mind so fast, but it seemed Snape had finally stopped playing.

There was a terrifying explosion of power, and Snape flew off of him, taking with him the relief Harry had felt just seconds ago. He waited to be struck down by the attacker, certain that another attack would follow the first.

Instead, Hermione knelt at his side, eyes wide and concerned as she whispered to him urgently. Harry wanted to snap at her, to tell her that of course he wasn't "alright," but, conscious of her sensitivity, he assured her that he was fine in a calm voice that reflected nothing of his true feelings. It was astonishing how calm he sounded.

He stayed still even as she locked him in her arms and forced him to watch Ron attack the man who would surely seek revenge against Harry for the violence. The thought was so frightening that he nearly cried out, but held back only to spare the others from knowledge of his weakness.

To Harry's relief, Neville pulled Ron away from the professor, refusing to free him despite a punch to the nose. Harry winced as though the wound were his own as he added another crime to his list of transgressions. Prone on the earth, Snape stirred and sought his charge. Harry felt guilty at the hurt in the man's eyes. Snape fled without justifying what had just happened, and abandoned Harry to the lions.

Unsettled by the arms locking him in place, he regarded Hermione with calm eyes that scarcely concealed his panic. The usually spacious campsite seemed overcrowded with the assortment of Gryffindors who had found their way to him, making Harry withdraw into himself and search for the facade that he usually presented to this group out of habit. Snape's absence left him unable to expose his own pain; instead, he set about soothing the nerves of his visitors.

First, he shook himself gently, encouraging Hermione to release him so that he could rise. He took survey of the grotto: the twins stood locked in place just inside the wards where Ron confronted them, dazed despite their usual chaos by the whirlwind of events they had just witnessed. Neville was half-kneeling on the earth behind the youngest redhead, breathless from restraining him and watching closely to see what would happen next.

"Snape hasn't been hurting me." Harry declared, intentionally deflecting Ron's rage from the twins. He needed to diffuse the tensions in the air before too many tempers careened out of control.

"Harry!" Ron's anger melted before concern as he turned to his friend. "He was _touching you._ We all saw."

But Harry scarcely heard him. When Ron turned, Harry spotted a jagged scar running from the redhead's forehead and across his eye, stopping at his nose. Looking more closely, he saw that there was a fainter line on the bridge of the other boy's nose, as if the blade had been stopped just before it could completely slice through the organ.

Aware that he was staring, Harry turned his gaze away from his friend, though he still burned with curiosity. He wanted to know what had happened, and in the past would have not hesitated to ask directly. Now, however, he was not sure he still claimed the right to such presumption; after he had abandoned his friends, he felt he no longer held any right to their personal information.

Ron noticed his gaze and spared him the trouble of asking. "We — Hermione and I, that is — were just in the wrong place in the wrong time. Malfoy and another Death Eater caught us alone."

Harry whirled to examine Hermione, terrified that he might find a similar wound upon her. He couldn't see anything, but he knew enough about wounds to know that they were easy to hide. Muddy brown eyes studied him with confusion as he used his magic to search for residual traces of healing, his body immobile while he accessed his powers.

Finding traces of magic on her, but still too early in his wandless training to identify what type of magic he found, his need to know grew. Concern overwhelmed his timidity and prompted him to ask if she had been hurt. Relieved to find her unharmed, he smiled at her with more sincerity than he had known he could muster. Then, as duty demanded, he apologized for his failure to prevent the attack.

"It wasn't your fault, Harry." Hermione responded. She refrained from saying the rest of what was on her mind, that it was their fault for snooping around in the ministry. It was better if Harry didn't hear about that, lest he feel more guilty.

"But it was." Harry insisted. "There's a prophecy that I have to defeat Voldemort, and I haven't been doing anything to fight against him."

Shaken by the revelation of a prophecy and tricked out of his anger by the change to a topic that he could not ignore, Ron took the bait. Surprisingly tactful, he refrained from asking for details about the prophecy and turned searching blueeyes on Harry. The hero's skin prickled under the gaze, but he held fast and waited with determination evident in the set of his shoulders.

Ron apparently saw what he was looking for because he relaxed, slipping a hand into the patched-on pocket that held his wand. "Well, what could you do, without me and Hermione around to help? We'll get you out of here, and then we can go back to Hogwarts and talk to the others in the DA. We kept it going, you know, even after you left."

Twigs and leaves tumbled aside as Harry took a step back, composure visibly shaken by Ron's suggestion, and shook his head. "No. No, I'm never going back to that place."

Hermione gasped and Ron protested, moving forward as if to grab the shorter boy by the shoulders. "Snape's not there anymore, Harry. It's safe now. Dumbledore will —"

The twins cut Ron off by simultaneously clamping their hands over his mouth, watching with pangs of grief as the mere mention of his tormentor's name sent Harry into a panic. Magical energy rose off of him like steam, more accessible after his recent training than ever before, and prevented any of his companions from getting closer to him.

"No no no no no." He whispered, eyes far away and unseeing as he was gripped by a cycle of memory.

The twins released Ron but hovered close, prepared to silence him again if the need arose. "Harry, you don't have to go back, it's okay." They attempted, trying to stem his panic. "You'll never have to see Dumbledore again."

Harry remained silent, mind and body locked in a trance as he imagined a return to his abuser. His brittle frame shook as memory and imagination closed in on him from the past, present, and future, coming together in a rush of images that tapped directly into his fear and overwhelmed the rest of his nature — the courage and compassion that drove him to fight for the benefit of others. The magic crackling off of him like electricity meant that the others could do nothing but watch as contact between the emotional and physical wracked his body, pushing gentle tears down his cheeks as he retched in the dirt, stomach heaving.

Neville ran into the clearing that none had even noticed him leaving, Snape in hot pursuit behind him. Having arrived at the campsite too late to see the attack, the plump boy had witnessed only Ron's anger, and perceived no danger in calling the Slytherin to Harry's aid. He remembered instead the night they had been forced to migrate through the forest, and thought of calm words and gentle magic that had prevented Harry's horror from becoming outright panic. Snape would do whatever he could to help Harry, Neville was sure.

Ron prepared to rage at the man as soon as he saw him, attributing his friend's current condition to Snape's abuse and knowing nothing of Harry's associations with Dumbledore, but the twins held him back, having also witnessed Snape's calming effect on Harry and knowing a bit more about what had triggered his attack. Still suspicious of the death eater, they were willing to let him help Harry while they were there to make sure he did not harm him instead.

The tall man had lost his foreboding air in his concern for his charge: his hair fell in wild strands about his face and his cheeks were flushed with the effort of running, his hood hanging loosely on his back instead of draped properly over his shoulders. He knelt at Harry's side, apparently unconcerned about the crackling magic as he reached out to place a hand on the hero's back. Unbeknownst to the others, he channeled magic through his palm and into Harry's body, forcing his muscles to relax as he ran soothing circles over the boy's hunched spine. Harry's heaving stopped and his pants gradually slowed from hyperventilating to mere heavy breathing.

Snape put hands on the Gryffindor's shoulders and pushed him to sit up with eyes only for Harry. They made eye contact and his caretaker pushed through the whirlwind of images at the front of Harry's mind to find what had triggered the attack.

Cursing ignorant Gryffindors, he summoned a potted passionflower that had been sitting on one of the transfigured benches away from the fire and plucked a leaf from it. Harry grimaced when Snape pressed it to his lips, silently encouraging him to chew on the bitter leaf as he clamped down on his charge's will with his magic, convincing him that he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep. With the help of the passionflower**, **the gentle geas worked and Harry's eyes began to droop.

Extricating himself from Snape's grasp, Harry wobbled over to the blankets by the fire and wrapped himself in them until he was completely hidden from view and could obey the geas on his mind to sleep away his panic.

Ron was torn between rushing after his friend and keeping a fixed glare on the man who had dared to return after attacking Harry. The potions master looked away out of guilt more than anything, but anger blinded Ron and he saw only arrogance.

"What did you do to him?" He snarled.

"I placed a geas on him." Snape explained softly, but sharply, meeting the challenge in Ron's voice with one of his own. "I managed to weaken the attack, but the memories you forced him to think about are too strong for him to resist. I made him want to go to sleep, and when he wakes, his mind will have settled."

"Isn't geas another word for compulsion?" George asked, piqued that the man had yelled at them for their compulsion on Neville when he would do the same thing to Harry.

"No, it is not." The man snapped. "A compulsion is a physical spell that forces you to act against your wishes. The more a person resists it, the more dangerous and crippling it can be. A geas is mind magic that makes you feel obliged or forbidden to do something, and only those well trained in the art of legilimency would even notice its presence and therefore be able to separate it from conscious will and fight against it. Therefore, provided the geas does not force you into something dangerous, it will not be harmful in the least."

"But a geas is still manipulation. It's like the imperius curse; it makes you do what the caster wants. It's dark." Hermione interjected, petite frame braced for a fight as she moved to Ron's side and stood up to her former professor more openly than she had ever dared to in the past.

"True." Snape agreed, unwilling to deny his association with the dark arts now that he no longer had a job to worry about. "Given the alternatives and our lack of sleeping draughts, it was the most immediate solution." Black eyes flashed. "He needed the immediacy."

"But it's your treatment that set him off in the first place!" Ron growled, not lunging at the man only because Neville and the twins seemed to have sided with him, and would move to prevent further attempts at violence. The inability to act made his rage boil harder.

"On this occasion it was your careless demand that he return to Hogwarts that upset him, fool." Snape looked over at Harry's still form reflexively, checking to see if he was asleep even though he knew his geas had taken effect. Harry was strong enough in the mind magics to resist even such a light geas when in his normal mind, but when his mind was clouded, the boy was as malleable as sliced newt.

"Why wouldn't he want to go back?" Ron retorted, rolling his eyes and forgetting that only one eye functioned, resulting in the appearance that his good eye was trying to crawl up into his head.

The others abruptly stilled, eyes vacillating between the pair in the middle of the group and each other, each disinclined to tell Harry's friends what had befallen him in the castle where he should have been safest.

Again, Neville proved his courage. "Because Snape isn't the one who's been hurting him. It was Dumbledore."

The duo stared at their yearmate in disbelief. Ron pled: "Mate, surely you don't believe that?"

"I saw it." He insisted, ignoring Ron's put-upon flinch and knowing that the truth needed to come out. "The night Harry ran away, he was badly hurt. I asked him what was happening, and he told me quite clearly that he was leaving. He had the same look in his eyes as you all did the night I tried to stop you from leaving the common room — the look that said nobody was allowed to stop him. Snape was obviously offended when I asked if he was the one who hurt Harry, and it was clear that he was trying to help him escape. I helped, too, because I believe him."

"Th-that's crazy!" Hermione cried, unwilling to believe that the man they all trusted was hurting Harry. "Why would the headmaster —"

"He told him it was training." Neville interrupted, voice soft but firm enough to prevent her from protesting again. "That _bastard _was _raping _him, and he told him it was meant to help him get stronger. Harry's messed up. I came here wanting nothing more than his company, but now I — we — know better. He doesn't smile the same way that he used to, and he's depressing as hell to be around, but he's still Harry, and we're doing everything we can to help him. You're not allowed to come here and make him worse."

"I fear they already have." Snape warned, straightening his robes. "In all the months I've been with him, he hasn't had an attack that bad. The consequences may be worse than the after-effects of dry heaving for a few minutes."

"So now you're blaming us?" Ron asked, desperately aware of Hermione's wavering composure at his side and determined to comfort her.

"Yes." Snape answered calmly. "You're the one who brought up returning to the headmaster."

Ron feared that Hermione would crumble, but she had more strength than he sometimes gave her credit for. "If…if what you say is true, then we've failed him, all of us, for not realizing. But how are we supposed to know if he's acting of free will, if you can control him as you please? You've probably forced him to resist going back to Hogwarts, to believe that Dumbledore was hurting him when it was actually you who gave him the wounds that Neville saw!"

Relieved to be faced with the girl's rational debate over irrational anger, Snape answered easily. "Harry is studying mind magic, and has the skills to prove it if you ask him to look into your memories and show you. He may still be in training, but he's reached the level where he would be able to detect and therefore resist such a strong geas. The one I cast just now worked only because he was so disoriented and, had he been clear-headed enough to decide, would have wanted to sleep anyway. If it were so easy to fool people, the dark lord would not need to intimidate followers; he could just brainwash everybody."

The means to test Snape's word had been put right into their hands, but Ron and Hermione would not be able to bring themselves to invite Harry into their minds. If he sought the truth behind their snooping at the ministry, he would surely find that their desire to help him was what put them in danger in the first place. That was a risk they did not want to take when they could just watch over Harry themselves.

"Say what you want, but we saw what you were doing to him." Ron retaliated, stepping in front of Hermione as if he feared that Snape would target her next. Ron's nature drove him to seek every flaw in the man's argument, to prove to everyone that he was a despicable death eater. No amount of arguing would change his mind. Had Snape been nothing more than a well-intentioned caretaker for Harry, Ron's pre-established hatred would have still led them to quarrel.

The man's eyes were unguarded for only a moment, but Neville observed the bitter self-hatred that Ron's declaration brought to the surface.

Severus didn't deny attacking Harry; he didn't say anything. Something, lust most likely, had overcome his consciousness and driven him to assault his charge. The comfortable touching he had initiated with the hope of helping Harry overcome his fears stirred the lust that had been growing for the boy, but still he had resisted it. When the twins began visiting constantly, however, Severus had felt guilty under their watchful gazes for even brushing the boy's arm, and had soon stopped touching him altogether in their presence.

The slytherin had thought himself strong enough to resist lust for a student, of all people, but whatever had overcome him and prompted the attack proved otherwise. Severus, though better intentioned, was no less a victim of his desires than Dumbledore. So he said nothing, and let the silence incriminate him.

Only Neville was able to forgive the man, gleaning from just that one flicker in his eyes that something deeper than mere lust had driven the attack. Snape's reticent nature prevented him from giving further evidence of his innocence, and so the others saw only a guilty man disinclined to talk about his crimes. Neville mourned that the same natural compassion that could have easily won the others over reconciled Snape to self-hatred — that same compassion made it unforgivable to even think about hurting Harry, regardless of whatever personal weakness had driven him to do so. He would not forgive himself, and so he would not defend himself.

An uneasy silence fell over the campsite as both parties refused to give in. Ron and Hermione doubted that Dumbledore was guilty of anything, while the twins believed that both Dumbledore and Snape had violated Harry, though Snape had only just begun to do so. Only Neville sided with the unfriendly man, perhaps because he had seen Harry's terror firsthand or perhaps because he understood what it was like to know nobody would believe you no matter what you said; of course Snape wouldn't try to explain himself under those conditions.

Regardless of the truth, each of the hero's protectors understood that that afternoon was the beginning of a new kind of battle for his safety.

Meanwhile, Harry's rest was not as serene as it appeared from the stillness of his body. Deep within his mind, Harry's mind magic-trained consciousness struggled to find the rift that was making him ill and fix it. His mental torment ricocheted through his mind in a soundless play of energy, ripping down mental defenses and wounding his soul even as he tried to contain it. He continued to fight back: in bursts of happy memories like gunfire, he chipped away at the ball of agony wreaking havoc on his stability. The memories barely scratched the surface of the terror Dumbledore's memory instigated.

He tried weaving nets of the memories to trap the self-destructive energy, but the panic tore right through them, making it increasingly harder to gain any warmth from once joyful thoughts. Harry wanted to cry out for help, to plead for Snape's expert mind magic to fortify his unravelling emotions, but the geas coated his surface thoughts like a mist. To concentrate on passing it would leave his mind vulnerable to the dangerous memories that had banded together to conquer him.

Pain washed out all other emotions — joy and grief could hardly stand up to the overwhelming surge of agony that the headmaster had built up since Harry's first year. There was no way to emulate the patronus, he realized; he could not overpower his fear with other memories. Determined to repair the damage ripping up his mind, he decided that he must suppress the emotions associated with his memories of Dumbeldore. Harry spread his magic in tendrils throughout his mind, found the still-undamaged rays of emotion, and smothered them.

The wrecking ball of energy stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

With the last of his desperate strength, Harry filled in the gaps created by the damage to his mind until, though the damaged areas remained raw and tender, his grasp on reality was restored. He unravelled the ball of memories and pushed them back into the chronology in which they belonged; without the emotion associated with them, they were as harmless as any other memory. It was a temporary solution, he knew, as the magic holding his memories together would need time to fully repair them, but at least the end of his attack meant that could fall into a tentative sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Transformed by the dangerous combination of incompletely-trained mind magic and emotional instability, Harry awoke feeling nothing but the damp. Emotion had been locked away in his effort to repair the damage caused by Dumbledore's memories.

It was early evening, judging by the burnt color of the sky; he had slept for only a few hours. He sat up, ignoring the pinching pain in his muscles that still remained from their earlier spasms, and found that not only had everyone present earlier remained in the clearing, but also that they lacked anything better to do than gawk at him.

"Harry…?" Hermione spoke first, motivated by a combination of curiosity and friendship that only fueled her guilt for letting him be hurt without noticing it.

He didn't bother to respond, instead musing that the stares fixed on him would have once created chills along his spine, but now affected him little. Objectively, he studied his companions. Ron couldn't bear to meet his eyes, likely out of misplaced responsibility for Harry's attack. It was Dumbledore who was responsible for everything, not any of Harry's allies. Neville watched him as hopefully as ever, his green eyes as raw as new grass in his effort to interpret his friend's every move. The twins also watched him with bated breaths, but kept Snape in their peripheral vision, waiting for him to make a move.

When the silence had stretched for too long among them, Hermione's voice still ringing in everyone's ears, Ron came to her aid. "Mate, are you in there?"

Harry nodded, unable to bring himself to waste breath to comfort the other boy. But Ron was never the kind to be deterred by silence. He took the silence as a sign of anticipation, and continued his line of questioning for the sake of the worried girl at his side. "Listen, mate. I'm…sorry if I set you off. I had no idea about Dumb— the headmaster. Really, I never would have tried to make you go back if I'd known."

Harry nodded again, knowing the words to be true. Still, he waited for the next question, knowing his friends well enough to understand that curiosity often overcame concern for his safety.

"Did the headmaster really…?" Hermione prodded, eyes glittering earnestly in her concern for him.

"He has been for years." Harry answered in an unwaveringly calm voice, startling his companions. With emotion locked away, he had surpassed his disinclination to talk about the man's crimes. Only shame had kept him from discussing them previously. Liberated from emotional weaknesses, Harry weighed only the advantage he might gain from honesty against the benefits of keeping the truth to himself. Honesty won easily.

The unnatural tone to Harry's voice silenced their inquiries much more sharply than anger or grief would have.

Undisturbed by their silence, he pushed to his feet and kicked his way through the twigs and fallen leaves that littered the forest floor. The umber had mostly bled out of the sky, leaving murky gray in its wake to drain the color from the forest around them. Blue flames dancing in their pit cast eerie shadows across grief-stricken faces, suspended in exhaustion and concern for his well being. They were drawn too thin, Harry thought. The strain of betrayal was too much for them.

"I can never go back." He said with a note of finality. "Wherever I go, Dumbledore will follow me because I know the truth and he'll want me under his control. Nobody will believe me over him. People have shown us how easy it is for them to turn against me again and again."

"So what are you going to do?" Hermione asked, and Harry relished in the sensation of determining his own future.

"I think I'll disguise myself and find a job. I have to start a new life somewhere, and I'm tired of having to scrounge things to get by."

"No." Snape spoke up immediately. "Putting yourself in such danger while the whole wizarding world is still looking for you would be foolhardy."

The enmity directed at the man thinned the air.

"You have no right to control him." One of the twins insisted. "He can get a job in the alley, where Fred and I can make sure he's safe."

"No. It's unnecessary and I won't have it."

"Will you attack me again, then?" Harry wondered softly. Seeing Snape's flinch, he pressed his advantage: "Adults are all the same. They pretend they want to help so that they can feel good about themselves, but when it comes down to it, they're all just selfish."

Snape met Harry's eyes and couldn't understand what he was seeing, why the boy spoke words that struck directly at his heart but didn't so much as frown. His eyes were hard, yet free from anger. He spoke only his honest feelings.

"Let me get the job, then." Snape tried, desperate to quell the pain that such honest criticism stirred in his chest. "If I'm to redeem myself in your eyes, then, as an adult, I'm the one who should take responsibility for this situation."

Both of them ignored the astonished stares from those who had never heard Snape speak so directly about anything. Who was this man, they wondered, who attacked Harry one minute and pleaded for his acceptance in the next. Had the hero been in full possession of his emotions, he might have given in to the man's plea.

"You would be safe from him while he was away working." Hermione added, her voice bright as she measured the alternative against her friend's well being.

"I'm the one whose life was ruined when Snape dragged me away from the headmaster." Harry replied as if he were the voice of reason, even though he wasn't being very reasonable at all. "I can never openly be Harry Potter again, so I've got to start a new life somewhere. I doubt he'll throw anything at me that's worse than what Dumbledore has done."

Ron, who understood Harry a bit better than Hermione, had to agree with his friend. It was only natural that Harry wanted to get away from the forest and feel like he was doing something again. Harry always preferred to avoid people who were overly concerned about him and made a fuss instead of leaving him to resolve his hurts on his own. Hermione, on the other hand, thrived on taking care of others and obsessing over wrongs against them. In the split second his warring loyalties made Ron hesitate to speak, he missed his chance.

"I would never." Snape murmured. "I…I can't promise that I won't lose myself and assault you again, but I have no intention of leaving it to chance. I refuse to give up the responsibility of looking after you — especially after _I _of all people failed to notice that you were being mistreated — but I'd like to request that all of you take turns chaperoning as well. The presence of blubbering idiots should defend me from any such action, don't you think, Harry?"

"Do what you want." Harry conceded, willing to let his self-appointed caretakers settle things among themselves as long as he got what he wanted. They usually prioritized their own opinions over his and made such a fuss when he tried to do what he wanted that he would feel bad whether or not he won the argument. With happiness no longer an issue, however, he fought for his right to do as he wanted. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

They stilled, Ron and Hermione both looking petulant and insulted that he didn't want their company. As always during moments such as this, Snape observed him with the cold regard of a scientist about to dissect an unusual animal. Fred, George, and Neville exchanged glances among themselves: irritating signs of concern that usually provoked Harry's anger.

Or they would have been, had there been any room left in his mind for such a useless emotion. Harry's sleeved unrolled themselves again as he walked behind some trees to the mattress he had transfigured for himself, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So, Harry's too determined to be a trauma victim for me to write a chapter completely from his perspective, evidently. I intended for this chapter to be an explanation of what's going on inside of his head during everything, but as it turns out, you get much clearer views from other characters. It's a good thing there are so many characters then, although having them all together at once has proved difficult as well. I'm definitely splitting them up next chapter!

As before, if you review and **specifically request **a drabble with a topic (related to this story) of your choice, I'll be happy to write it for you! Anything is fine, from angst to strange confrontations, to weird and specific details. I like being able to use characters that may not have their perspective explored for a while, and drabbles are a good way to do so.

Please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.


	13. Their Forgiveness: Ron, Harry

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **As Harry worked, Ron couldn't help but notice that his friend was miserable. But those are feelings, and there's no way he could help with those. Ron needed another way to save his friend.

Chapter 13: Their Forgiveness

"If you're going to be staying overnight, then you'll have to help me with the nightmares." Snape told Ron not unkindly.

Ron had volunteered to spend the night and protect Harry from Snape. They set up a rotating schedule, with everyone taking turns visiting the clearing so that Harry would never be alone with the man. As the final weeks of summer passed, Harry spent many of his days doing work throughout the alley, running for food and sorting stockrooms that couldn't simply be spelled clean. If one were to judge by his actions, Harry was acclimating to his new life quite easily.

But nights like this were different. On nights like this, after a ministry scan of the alley or a new article about Dumbledore's hunt for the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry would even hurt himself to stay awake. He would do anything to resist the pull of the forceful nightmares that swept him up without warning, dreams that wrenched him down into suffocating anxiety, then left him shaking and frail and unable to still his trembling limbs.

Harry denied feeling fear. He theorized that Dumbledore had cursed him, or his body remembered the man's torments, because there was no way that he was still afraid.

That was the other thing strange about Harry: he had stopped showing any sort of emotion or expression. Instead, when people cracked a joke or yelled in an attempt to shatter his stillness, he merely gazed at them as if he couldn't understand their need to expend such energy. Snape claimed that these were after-effects of Harry's panic attack the day Ron and Hermione had joined the hero's band of protectors. Parts of Harry's mind had shut down to protect themselves.

They came back when he was sleeping, it seemed.

Harry grumbled as he turned over on his side, dark hair falling over a face already drowning in the night's shadows. His newly purchased robes fit him better than his baggy old ones, hugging his gaunt form and emphasizing his puny waist and shoulders. When he first asked a shopkeeper for a job, the man had taken one look at him and scoffed at his size. Harry, or Merrick as he was calling himself, had offered to work for free the first day to prove his competence.

When the shopkeeper saw how quickly he worked, and how easily he won a spontaneous duel against the man's son, he had changed his tune and hired the teenager on the spot. All of the shopkeepers that Harry worked for had been won over in a similar manner, and now they loved their shared employee, even teaching him spells and asking him to tutor their pre-Hogwarts children in his spare time. They accepted the strange, quiet boy with the crazy work ethic who never smiled, but was as gentle as anyone they had ever met.

They laughed at him as though he was laughing with them, teasing him for his inability to keep his sleeves rolled up and his refusal to buy new glasses, uncaring that he never so much as snickered back at them. Harry's disguise, while it hid his facial features and hair, did nothing to conceal his glasses or his size. It was his size that made him so easy to trust; the shopkeepers thought of him as someone they wanted to look after, someone who desperately needed the money their jobs provided.

Or so the twins told him. Ron didn't see much of Harry's work, as even associating with his disguised friend could make the ministry suspicious.

And so, even though he knew his friend was suffering, even though he knew that Snape was tormenting him and they shouldn't be left alone together, there was very little he could do about it. Soon, too, school would begin again and only the twins would be free to protect Harry from the man. The thought of going back to Hogwarts and acting the same around Dumbledore was sickening, and even imagining the man with his long beard and friendly bearing made Ron's fists curl.

"Calm down before you make your head explode." Snape sighed as he watched Harry sleep.

Ron exhaled. He had to be calm so that he could protect Harry. He watched closely as the man approached the sleeping boy, reaching out and placing a hand over his eyes.

"Don't touch him." Ron growled warningly.

Snape glanced back and rolled his eyes before he returned his gaze to Harry, murmuring under his breath until the other Gryffindor's breathing evened out. Then he pulled his hand away from him, tilting an eyebrow at Ron as if to say _Really? I wouldn't attack him with you right here._

Maybe not, Ron thought, but it was better to keep an eye on him. Who knew when Snape would snap again?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You have to stop fighting with him so much." George chastised when Ron was sitting in the twins' store a few days before it was time for school to start. "I'm sure it's only making Harry uncomfortable."

"Nothing seems to affect Harry these days." Ron disagreed, picking absently at the basket holding the chocolate frogs at the front counter. Business was booming for the twins, and the store was flooded with customers.

"Even so, it must be affecting him. Snape's not abusing Harry, so stop acting as though he's going to attack him at any moment."

"I _saw _him with my own eyes." Ron disagreed. "How could I not want to protect him after that? Whatever's wrong with him is putting him in even more danger. I bet it's Snape's fault."

"Stop it, Ron." George told him, leaning on elbows resting against the counter. "Really, that's enough. You were there for the rest of the events too, so you know that Snape's not abusing him. Don't even say it, I see you opening your mouth. Yes, what you saw was bad. Snape himself admitted to doing it. But that makes him a pervert, and no worse than an overly aggressive suitor. He's not _hurting _Harry, and he's doing his best to control himself. Supervision should be enough to stop anything like that from happening again."

"And you're _okay _with that? Leaving Harry alone with a pedophile doesn't seem all that safe to me!"

"And what would you have us do instead? Leaving Harry by himself isn't an option, and whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, Snape has helped Harry in ways that we can't deny. Do you really want to take Harry away from the only person who seems to understand what he's going through? Is that really okay with you?"

"No. No it's not. But it's still suspicious!"

"What is?"

"Who can't resist a little lust?" Ron asked, frustration evident in his voice. "I want to…"

"You want to what?"

"It doesn't matter." Ron huffed. "I can see that I'm not going to win against him. But we've been talking to Neville, and he's determined to take down Dumbledore. Talk about crazy! He's a tougher opponent than Snape."

"He is. But, you know, when Neville says he'll do it, I somehow believe him."

Ron made a face at his brother. "When did you two get so close to Neville anyway? He went to you before he went to Hermione and me, even though we're Harry's best friends."

"We went to him, actually. He was acting suspicious. You're the ones who were too busy locking yourselves in your own world to see it."

Ron frowned, hearing some sort of accusation in his brother's tone. "Why should we have noticed? He can't have been acting _too _different. And we were busy worrying about Harry."

"Neville was probably just as worried as you were. He had actually _seen _Harry injured and managed to figure out what was happening."

"He knew?" Ron hadn't realized just how much Neville had kept from them. "That bastard! He knew what happened to Harry and he didn't tell us?"

"He was scared, Ron." George spoke quietly so that no customers would overhear, but his voice was thick and heavy with anger. "Dumbledore is the strongest enemy you can have, and the people who are supposedly his friends were too busy to even talk to him. Don't you _dare _pick a fight with him for doing the best he could to protect Harry's secret."

Chastised, but too stirred up to back down from the confrontation, Ron snarled, his eyes narrowing and pulling the ends of his scar closer together over his eye. Neither of the twins had ever shown this kind of ferocity on _Ron's _behalf before.

Stony-faced and with the posture of a security guard, George rose and stood in front of Ron, daring him to act on his irritation.

Ron was enough of a strategist to know when he was outclassed. He saw Fred, summoned by George's emotions, approaching them from the other side of the room. He wasn't stupid enough to let them gang up on him. Wounded, blood boiling in his chest and pounding around his eyes, Ron stormed out of the store, trying not to think about how undignified his tantrum seemed in light of everything else going on with Harry.

His family had always been a sore spot for him.

XXXXX

When everyone who knew about Harry and Snape gathered for the last evening before it was time to return to Hogwarts, the sun had just begun to set. It was late, and the air was dry as it brushed against their skin. Bugs with high-pitched voices chirped and sang their hearts out to celebrate the end of another summer day. In contrast, something somber draped itself over the campsite, impending doom and wounded feelings and private hurts simmering silently in the stillness.

Only Harry seemed unaffected, flipping through the pages of an old book one of his employers had given him and ignoring the people who had gathered for him.

"Gah! I can't take this anymore!" Hermione, surprisingly, was the first to snap. "I don't want to go back. How can we, in the same school as the man who hurt Harry? How can we just pretend everything's the same?"

Even in a situation like this one, Ron noticed the way her sweater hugged her body when she rose, the wrinkles smoothing out against her stomach. He put a hand on her arm, half comfort and half restraint. It wouldn't help anyone to hear their fears aired when there was nothing they could do about them. And besides, Harry wouldn't respond to such an emotional approach right now anyway.

But something about what she said caught Harry's attention. "You're scared?" he asked. "I don't think he's going to start hurting any of you, so there's no reason for you to be afraid of Hogwarts."

Hermione frowned. "But Harry, just knowing that he's so powerful and he's after you…doesn't that scare you?"

Harry shook his head, looking down at his steady hands. "I'm not afraid, but my heart is cold."

"Cold how?" Neville asked.

"Like…if I spend too much time dwelling on Dumbledore or what happened, I'll just freeze. I won't be able to keep moving through everyday life."

"So you really are afraid, so you're trying not to think about it," Hermione said, triumphant.

"I suppose," Harry agreed.

"That's an emotion, right, professor?" Hermione asked. "He's got some emotions left after all!"

"Fear is a survival instinct more than an emotion," Snape said. "He may feel fear, and he may feel the urge to protect someone or fulfill the prophecy, but he won't feel happy or sad about his accomplishments. He won't care if he hurts your feelings, and he won't feel betrayed when he thinks of the headmaster."

"Bloody hell," Ron snarled, "This is so twisted. You may not be able to feel it, Harry, but I can see how miserable you are." And he could. Harry was going through the motions of living without really feeling anything. He was getting thinner and thinner and he never smiled or laughed or enjoyed any of the things he _was_ accomplishing.

"Can you fix him?" Neville's voice pulled Ron out of his thoughts. He was probably the only one of them who would think to ask Snape. "Professor, is there anything you can do?"

"Maybe, with Harry's help, we might be able to repair the damage," Snape said. He sighed. "But he won't let me."

"What?" Ron asked, turning to his friend. "Harry, why wouldn't you let him try to fix this? Even if it is Snape."

"It's better like this. I don't have to suffer any more. I can't feel love, but I don't feel despair either. I can't remember a time when I was this free," Harry spoke without looking up from his book, as if admitting that he had been suffering his whole life was no big deal.

"Harry, please let us save you," Ron begged, kneeling in front of his friend and yanking the book from his hands "I can't stand to see you living like this. None of us can."

"So you want me to suffer?" Harry asked, sounding genuinely confused instead of angry, like he would have in the past.

"No, but…Harry, we want you to feel again," Hermione said. "We want you to love us again."

"So you're being selfish?" Harry asked. "I thought you were better than that. Why is my love worth so much to you?"

They all fell silent, hesitant to reveal their personal feelings in front of everybody. Ron tried to talk, but his voice caught in his throat. It all sounded so girlish. Fred and George were the first to speak.

"You gave us your Triwizard winnings to start our joke shop," one said, to Ron's surprise. Why had Harry given away his money to the twins, of all people, instead of the rest of their family or keeping it?

"We know you didn't want anything to remind you of Cedric," the other twin said. "But still, nobody has ever trusted us with something like that, let alone —"

"Believing in our dream to start a shop. Everyone else would have told us to stay in school. Your trust meant a whole lot to us, not just because of the money."

"I don't really understand," Harry said. "What makes that so important?"

"Your regard makes them feel better about themselves," Snape said, drawing all eyes in the campsite to him. "Which, in turn, improves their lives. I believe it is the same for all of us." That was as good as a declaration of love coming from Snape, Ron thought. He glared at the man, though in this case he was right.

"I…see," Harry said. "But I still don't want to suffer any more."

"We know, Harry," Hermione sighed wearily, prompting Ron to put his arm on her hand again.

"It really isn't healthy," Ron muttered, then held out Harry's book. "But it's your choice, okay? We won't take that away from you. I know you hate it when people do that."

"I seem to remember that, yeah," Harry muttered, flipping back to where he was when Ron took the book from him.

They spent the rest of last evening of summer in silence.

XXXX

Harry was working in the back of the store a few weeks after what would have been his seventh year started when he heard the first scream. After the first, the screams continued, loud and relentless and broken only by the sound of explosions. Logic told him to stay hidden, but his reflexes carried him into the alley before he though too much about it. When he saw the Death Eaters, he cast a wandless disillusionment charm on himself and backed into an alleyway to watch. Resistors and aurors were already fighting back, so he didn't have to risk getting caught by helping anybody.

His first instinct was to hide himself, not out of fear of Voldemort, but out of fear of Dumbledore. If the old man appeared and found him, there was no way he could escape. Dumbledore scared him more than the Dark Lord. All of those dreams that he tried to ignore were about Dumbledore. Unlike in the past, he never woke shaking or terrified because of _Voldemort's_ actions. Harry would have been perfectly content to wait out the battle from the safe alleyway, but before he knew what had happened, that increasingly familiar mist filled his mind. Judgement obscured, Harry found his legs carrying him off towards Voldemort, even though he had no clue how he knew where the villain was, or why his body was so determined to seek him out.

Voldemort was shouting his name as he attacked the alley, destroying buildings more for show than to do serious damage. It was clear that he didn't expect to find Harry in the alley; he just wanted to get the word out that he was looking and drive _Harry _to seek him out before more people got hurt. His wand gave off malicious red sparks as he blew up a storefront, and Harry wondered if he should launch a surprise attack from behind. As rubble smashed against the street, Harry mused that he would need to fight the villain eventually. His mind clouded over again as he hesitated, wondering if he was still too weak, and that was enough time for demonic red eyes to fix on him, slicing through his disillusionment charm like butter.

"Harry Potter," he said in his rasping voice, slick with malicious delight that crawled over Harry's skin and left it cold.

"Voldemort," Harry said, the sound welling from his throat as if he were under a compulsion.

Despite the danger, Harry could not bring himself to give the monster his full attention. Warily, his eyes scanned the area in search of the headmaster, who was sure to appear. Voldemort noticed his divided attention. Enraged, he cast a crucio not at the source of his rage, but at a young auror nearby. The auror screamed bloody murder as he fell to the ground and began writhing, not used to the pain like Harry was. Voldemort knew how to attack his enemy's weaknesses, and people suffering because of him had always been something Harry couldn't stand, with or without emotion.

Eyes drawn back to Voldemort as his protective urges surged, he lifted his wand, prepared for a face off to defend innocent victims.

"Harry Harry Harry," Voldemort rasped, attention fully devoted to the boy in front of him. "However did you escape Dumbledore's clutches? For Severus to flee with you, to renounce his duty to _me, _you must have truly won his sympathy. Perhaps you share his past abuses, hmm?"

Harry's face must have given away his surprise, for Voldemort chuckled and continued: "Oh yes, I know all about Dumbledore's perversions."

"The headmaster….to you..?" Harry asked, trying to imagine Tom Riddle as one of Dumbledore's victims. It just didn't match the memories Dumbledore had shown him; he couldn't reconcile that arrogant young wizard with his idea of one of the headmaster's toys.

Red eyes flashed. "No, you fool," Voldemort hissed, clearly offended that Harry would even think him capable of being a victim. "I would never suffer that old meddler's touch! I gleaned the situation from Severus's memories when he was driven to join me. If you have suffered the same as he, it comes as no surprise that he would betray me."

"I have suffered even worse that he has," Harry said. Dumbledore's tortures were much worse than any of Voldemort's. "So, do your worst. You won't break me."

"Why not join me instead, Harry? _I _would never commit such atrocities."

"Join you?" Harry asked, wondering whether Voldemort was sincere or if this was merely a trap. Either way, Harry could never side with the man who killed his parents and made people suffer, even if it meant that Harry would suffer or even die. "I would rather suffer endlessly in Dumbledore's clutches. **Expelliamus**!"

Voldemort evaded the sudden disarming spell easily. He turned his wand on Harry with dark intent, but another spell from the right forced him backwards before he could cast anything. Voldemort snarled as he looked at the spell caster, but Harry didn't need that clue to know who it was. Harry recognized Dumbledore's magical signature instantly. Without a second thought, he turned to flee while the man was busy, trying to escape both villains. Before he took two steps, a spell froze him in place.

"You wait right there," Dumbledore instructed as he turned his wand on Voldemort. "I've missed you, Harry."

Anybody who didn't know Dumbledore's true nature would have thought he heard relief in his voice, but Harry heard the sinister intent that promised torturous punishment to come. Voldemort might have heard the true intent in his words too, for he prepared to retreat even as he chuckled to make himself seem unafraid.

"By all means," the Dark Lord said. "Drive him to hate you. Pursue him wherever he goes, until he has no recourse but my service. You will seek my aid eventually, Harry. Mark my words."

He disappeared in a puff of mist. Even if Dumbledore captured him, Harry would never turn to Voldemort for anything but death. Mind racing for a way to flee, Harry was grateful yet again for his suppressed emotion. Only the suppression of the usual horror that Dumbledore induced enabled him to think clearly in the first place. He thought as hard as he could as Dumbledore walked sedately towards Harry, eyes triumphant like a hunter who has his prey trapped. Harry's magic strained against his invisible ties to no avail. He couldn't even move his chin to use the wandless escape Shortcut he had worked so hard to practice. There was no way to free himself. Resigned to his inevitable recapture, Harry closed his eyes and tensed as a wrinkled hand extended towards him.

"Stop right there," a low, intense voice that Harry would have recognized anywhere said.

"Severus," Dumbledore greeted solemnly, no concern in his tone. He was always putting on a show for anyone who might be watching. "I'm most disappointed in what you've done, after all I've done for you. It's very brave of you to show yourself to me. Have you come to ask forgiveness? If so, I will do what I can to shelter you from Azkaban."

"We're not playing this game again, old man," Snape said, voice shaking only slightly as he stepped in front of Harry so that he was nearly nose-to-nose with his tormenter. "You cannot touch him again."

As he'd promised. Snape was acting like a Gryffindor; Harry had been sure that Snape was only pretending to help him, but apparently the man really did want to shield him from Dumbledore. He probably just wanted Harry for himself, though. Harry wondered if his friends were enough to keep the potions master from trying again. Either way, it was preferable to Dumbledore.

"You'd have him live as a fugitive for the rest of his life?" Dumbledore asked. "I will never abandon the wizarding world's best hope to such an existence."

"Then maybe I really will flee to Voldemort," Harry bluffed, after a flash of inspiration. That thread might keep Dumbledore at bay.

Both men turned to him in alarm. Aghast, Severus silently hoped that the boy was bluffing to chase off Dumbedore. He wasn't sure though, because he himself had turned to the Dark Lord when he needed to escape, though he had eventually decided that serving Voldemort was the greater of two evils. The headmaster also paused, weighing his responses carefully as he decided which of his many secrets he should leverage against Harry's threat.

"I was going to spare you this knowledge," Dumbledore said, still mockingly gentle as he looked at Harry over Snape's shoulder. "But if that is truly your decision, there is something you should know. We spoke of the night Voldemort marked you, but there is a truth I never revealed to you. When the killing curse rebounded, Harry, it made you a horcrux."

Silently, Harry weighed the news. He would have to die then, if he was ever to defeat Voldemort. He had known that he would probably die anyway, so he did not know why the old man had told him about it. Maybe Dumbledore abused him because he considered him a deadman anyway. Only Voldemort had a reason to keep Harry alive. Taking a deep breath, with measured caution, Harry challenged the headmaster: "If I told him that, why would Voldemort kill me?"

"He would have to, if he wanted to extract his soul from you," Dumbledore said, clearly prepared for such a question. "Horcruxes are dangerous, my boy. They influence your behavior, and they bring out the darkness in those around you. Have you noticed yourself acting strangely lately? The horcrux is to blame, and it will eventually harm anyone who is near you for long enough. Only I can shield you from it, Harry."

Even without emotion, Harry's natural compassion weighed his options and found that none were favorable. No matter what he did, someone other than him would suffer. Voldemort would succeed if Harry told him about being a horcrux, and his friends would be hurt if he returned to Dumblefore. His death was inevitable, but he would do the most good by giving himself over to the old man; he wouldn't physically harm anyone that way.

"You win," Harry said, as if he actually had a choice, held immobile by Dumbledore's spell as he was.

"No, you do not," Snape said. Harry had almost forgotten he was there.

The man spread his arms wide, almost as if he were preparing to hug Dumbledore, but Harry could feel the magical discharge that preceded wandless magic. Just as the potions master shouted the spell for a magic explosion, Harry felt hands grab him from behind. As he was apparated away, he saw tendrils of magic from each of Snape's hands flash towards the headmaster in between them, igniting a condensed explosion that shook the earth. The blast of the spell merge with the crack of appartion, and the men disappeared from his sight.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Do you think he meant it about going to Voldemort?" Ron asked.

"Snape doesn't," one of the twins said. "He thinks Harry was bluffing, though we could all understand if Harry was actually tempted to do it."

"Are you saying that he should?" Ron exclaimed, horrified that they might support him in that.

"No, of course not. Ron, calm down. We just said that we would _understand, _in his current state, if he had considered it. That doesn't mean we think it's okay."

"Alright," Ron muttered.

He heard about what had happened earlier that day from the twins. When they had realized the alley was under attack while Harry was at work, they had known that Dumbledore would not be far behind. Practical despite their mischievous tendencies, they knew that they could not protect him alone, so they had hurried to get Snape. The man had hurried back with them to find Harry, casting a point me spell that only worked for him because he had cast the ward against that spell over Harry in the first place. When he had seen what was happening, Snape told the twins that they should grab Harry and escape with him the moment that he attacked the Headmaster. They had escaped to safety with Harry, closely followed by Snape.

"Did the explosion hurt him?" Ron asked hopefully after a moment of thought, fiddling with the radio-like device the twins had given him before he returned to school.

"He shielded himself, of course, but he was distracted enough for all of us to escape."

"Is Harry alright then?" Ron asked. He hated that he couldn't be with his friend right now. Ron hadn't been able to protect him yet again. What was the point of school, if Harry was off getting hurt while Ron sat on his ass and listened to lectures? "Wait, how are you both talking to me right now? You're never supposed to leave him alone with that bastard."

"Calm down, Ron," his brother told him again. "He's at wok. But after this, it's clear that Snape only wants to protect him."

"Not you too," Ron groaned, frustration leaking into his voice. "I _saw _him assaulting Harry. You can't just ignore that evidence against him."

"But there's more you need to know," his brother said gently. "We know why Snape was acting —"

"Like such a schitzo. He spent months by Harry's side before we found them. In that time, he was exposed to the horcrux in Harry —"

"Without a break. It's been influencing his mind, and Harry's too, which is why we thought he was losing it. He _couldn't _think straight."

"Well, Harry definitely has issues from Dumbledore anyway," one of the twins added.

"Why would the Horcrux make Snape assault Harry?" Ron asked, skeptical. It sounded like they were just making excuses for the lecherous git.

"We wondered that too. Apparently, Snape is drawn to Harry because they were both abused by Dumbledore, so —"

"What?" Ron interrupted. "Dumbledore abused that git too? Are you sure?"

"Fred, I guess we forgot that Ronnikins didn't know about that," George said.

"He hasn't exactly spent much time talking to Snape, George," Fred responded.

"Wait, you already knew?" Ron asked, feeling betrayed. They'd even sought out Neville, and Ron had had to force them to show him where Harry was hiding.

"We were more forgiving for a reason, Ron," George said. "We knew that he was messed up too, but what he did was still unforgivable."

"Well, until now," Fred added. "We get it now. Snape's intentions are pure, and he only wants to help. The horcrux is distorting his attraction into something sexual. Snape would never touch a student otherwise, especially with his past."

"Well aren't you forgiving," Ron muttered.

"Have some empathy, Ron," George snapped. "Imagine Snape, a young boy just like Harry, being abused by the most powerful man in the wizarding world, without anybody who could save him, for years and years. You can't just ignore that reality, especially when it's right in front of you when you think of Harry. How can you not understand that?"

Thinking of a second victim churned Ron's stomach. "Do you think…is Dumbledore hurting other students too?"

"Harry doesn't think so, based on how much time the headmaster spent abusing him."

Ron's heart clenched at that, and guilt overcame him yet again. He was getting used the feeling. His best mate had been suffering so much right under his nose, and he had suspected nothing.

"Alright," Ron said. Any more of this and he would get too mad to think straight. "I have to think about this."

"Alright," one twin said. "And Ron, if the Headmaster calls you for any reason, get away as fast as you can. He will be able to look into your mind. Tell Hermione and Neville too."

Ron nearly threw the radio in his hands. There was so much he didn't know. "Alright," he said seriously, jaw set in a grim line as he considered how they could avoid Dumbledore at all costs. It was going to be challenging.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Ron met Hermione and Neville in the room of requirement and told them what he had learned, he saw immediately that Hermione didn't know how to handle the news. Her grades hadn't slipped at all, but she clearly wanted to be elsewhere. Ron was always watching her, so he saw the way that her eyes would mist over at random times, and he saw the way they glistened after she heard that Snape was also Dumbledore's victim. Clearly, she was willing to forgive the man. But it was emotional Hermione, so Ron couldn't fault her for it.

He wasn't so busy watching Hermione that he missed Neville's relief at the news. Neville had sided with Snape from the beginning, and Ron wondered just how much he had already known. Probably most of it.

"I wish I was with him," Neville confessed. There were bags under his eyes, and he had been even more preoccupied than Hermione lately. "Being here isn't the same now that we know the truth."

Ron should have said something encouraging, or urged the boy to take better care of himself, but his innate competitiveness flared up. "Of course, we all want that," Ron said. "Harry needs me and Hermione right now."

The plump boy looked at him with the eyes of a hurt puppy, and Ron could see that his words stung. It was a low blow, reminding the boy that he was not originally part of their group, and he instantly regretted it.

Sensing the tension between the two boys, Hermione interceded, "And I'm even more worried about the Headmaster reading our minds and finding Harry. As long as we're here though, you boys really should try to study as much as possible. It's hard with everything else going on, but we need every advantage we can find."

It always went back to studying with her. Ron groaned, but inside he was relieved by the familiarity of her reaction. There was no one more reliable than Hermione when you needed someone to ground you. Ron rubbed a hand over his scarred eye.

"Does you eye bother you?" Neville asked, clearly willing to forgive Ron for attacking him.

"Naw, it doesn't hurt," Ron said sheepishly, glad Neville didn't hold grudges. "It's just a habit I've picked up ever since I was in the hospital."

"Oh," Neville said.

They fell into a stretched silence, not really sure what to say to each other. Ron and Hermione weren't used to the new dynamic of Neville in their circle of friends, but the pudgy boy was clearly there to stay. He seemed to know more about Harry that any of them these days. Jealous rose in him again, driving him to break the silence.

"Neville, when did you get so close to Harry?" Ron asked.

Hermione's disapproval burned into the side of his head. He scowled petulantly at her, but couldn't ignore the prickle of his conscience that always nagged at him when she looked righteous like that.

"What?" He whined. "I was just acting."

"I-I guess we're not all that close," Neville said. "I've always thought Harry was amazing. I'm sort of a c-coward, but even though he has a much harder life than me, he's always thinking about others and making the impossible happen. He's lucky you noticed that he put up silencing charms at night and forced him to take them down."

It was astounding; Ron had thought he was being subtle. "You noticed that?" He asked.

"Of course I did," the boy said. "Were you trying to hide it? I woke him up when I saw him tossing around in silence once, but he ignored me when I told him it was alright if he didn't silence himself. Then a week later he was back to normal, and you were right by him when he started screaming. I knew you must have done it."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. It was hard to stay jealous of Neville when he praised you like that. "Harry's like that. He hates attention, but he's got such a bloody good heart that he can't just tell people to piss off when they harass him."

"That's what we're here for,: Hermione said. "To support him, and help him do what he has to and make sure nobody bullies him. Or…at least I thought so before…"

Distressed at her grief, Ron jumped to placate her. "We couldn't have known, Hermione," He said. "Dumbledore is… he's stronger than anything I can imagine. And apparently nobody _ever _catches him when he does things like this. Even if they did —"

"There's really nothing Harry and Snape can do but run away, is there?" Hermione asked.

"That's not true," Neville said, stutterless. "Like I've been saying, I'm going to find a way to take him down, no matter what it takes."

"How?" Ron asked, skeptical despite the confidence in the other boy's voice. "How can you realistically do something like that?"

"I don't know exactly, but I _am _studying, Hermione. I've decided to study law and get my masters in Herbology as fast as I can so I can start earning money and figuring out how to do something. If I make my way up in the world, maybe I can reach him one day."

"Your masters, this young?" Hermione asked. Ron could already see her gears spinning. All that studying explained why Neville looked so exhausted that he could drop at any time.

"The youngest ever is sixteen," Neville said. "It will take a couple of years of non-stop studying for me, but I think it's possible, and it's been done before. I was…actually thinking of ski-skipping my NEWTS to focus on it, since the only requirement is that you present a topic you researched and pass a test. Well, there's a test for law too."

"And if you have your mastery, your NEWT scores won't matter," Hermione mused. "Nobody will question whether you know what you're doing."

Ron was floored. Here he was, focusing all his energy on avoiding Dumbledore and accusing Snape, when Neville had already been thinking about years into the future. The other Gryffindor truly was devoted to helping Harry, and Ron couldn't hate anyone who looked out for his best mate so well.

"Well," he told his friends. "I can see you've already won Hermione over. There's no way she'd pass up the chance for _more _studying, not when it could even help Harry. I guess maybe I'll join in on your plan too."

"You would do that? Something I thought of?" The genuine awe in Neville's voice stung. Had he really made that low of an impression on the other Gryffindor?

"I'd do anything it takes to help Harry," Ron said. "We're lucky to have your help, Neville."

The boy flushed at the praise, but Ron could see that he was pleased. Hermione beamed at him, which was an added bonus. It was rare that he won her praise on accident.

"So, what kind of mastery do you want, Ron?" Hermione asked.

"Defense," He answered instantly. "I could work in the criminal department, and make my way up until I had the power or contacts to expose Dumbledore, and with Neville in law, I'll have help from that side too."

"You sure thought of that fast," Hermione said. "Why not an auror?"

"Aurors catch bad guys, but they're not the once who keep them in jail or make the laws. That's not the kind of help Harry needs," Ron said. He hadn't thought of that before, but it was true. "What about you, Hermione?"

"Maybe Arithmancy," she said. "Or charms, or maybe something I've never studied like healing. Oh, I want to learn everything!"

"Well it's not like you have to choose right this minute," Neville said.

"I know," Hermione sighed. "I have to try to think of something that could actually help Harry. Still, I wish there was something we knew would work, like if we could just undo all of the harm that Dumbledore has done."

"What, like going back in time?" Neville asked.

Hermione frowned thoughtfully, the wrinkles on her forehead signaling deep thought. "There are time turners, but is something like that even possible?"

"No," Ron said. "I've never heard of anything like that, and if it could happen, I'm sure that the Unspeakables or someone even more powerful has a lock on it."

"I've never heard anything like that either," Neville said. "But I guess it's theoretically possible."

Ron saw the dangerous spark in Hermione's eyes.

"Hermione, it's probably better to focus on the mastery," Ron told her warily. "Don't waste your time pursuing a dead end."

"It must be possible," Hermione muttered, more to herself than him. "It would help us fix everything, if we could go back to before Dumbledore had so much power. Maybe people would be able to see the truth then."

"Hermione, don't —"

"Would you do it?" Hermione asked. "To save Harry and punish _him, _would you do it, even if it meant you could never return to the present?"

"I would," Neville said. "After everything Harry's done for me, I would do it for him."

"I guess if it were possible," Ron agreed reluctantly. He would certainly follow Hermione wherever she went. "For Harry, I'd do it. But Hermione —"

"We'll have to see what Harry thinks, and Snape I suppose," she mused.

"Hermione —" Ron tried again.

"You focus on the masteries and the ministry, Ron, Neville," Hermione said. "If this is possible, if Harry agrees, I can't just ignore the chance."

Ron knew when arguing was futile. Hermione was passionate when you have her a cause to fight for, and she probably really would spend years looking before she gave up. And even then, she would always be on the lookout for a new lead.

He glanced at Neville, who seemed taken aback by her whirlwind of energy. Ron caught his eye when he saw him open his mouth to protest, and shook his head. Hermione was hooked, and if anyone could make the impossible happen, it was her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I rearranged the plot of this and the next two chapters SO MANY TIMES to try to make it all work. The section of Harry in the middle of a chapter of Ron might seem a bit strange, but it's the only way I was able to work everything out. Tell me if you see anything inconsistent or someone seems out of character. After the next two chapters, the group WILL be in the past, I promise! I'm already almost done with the next chapter, so it won't be another year before the next one. I have no idea how that even happened. I also just moved to NYC for the next few months.

So, to help me get back into writing shape, please **request a drabble. **It'll be short, but just give me a topic and I'll get one back to you asap. As an incentive, here's a drabble I wrote at one point about Harry and Dumbledore to explain his self-loathing when Neville first finds him:

**Drabble: Harry**

They stared at him and he straightened his back, tossing his head to show them that he didn't care. So what if he was a parselmouth? That didn't mean that he would suddenly confess to a crime, that he was suddenly worth less than he had been moments before they knew him a little better.

"They're not treating you right." Hermione told him later, like cold balm on a bruise. "It's not fair what they're doing. You'd never do something like that!"

Harry gaped at her for a moment, and then he smiled until his jaw was stretching because someone believed in him. Someone who knew him even better than the rest of the school believed in him and was taking his side instead of locking him away in a cupboard without a chance to defend himself.

Malfoy told him that he was stupid and mocked him for the dementors but Harry didn't care because Hermione knew him better.

Wrinkly hands pawed at his face and pushed fingers between his lips, grabbing his tongue and stretching it out of his mouth like a torture device. Harry couldn't move because of the ropes around his neck as Dumbledore whispered in his ear that *this was the organ that made him like Voldemort.*

He'd failed all of Dumbledore's lessons by talking in Parseltongue because it made him weak and inferior. He couldn't control himself, but Dumbledore comforted him as he cried and promised that he'd reforge Harry into something stronger.

It was ironic when the embers on his tongue hissed as they seared him. Harry screamed until his voice was gone, hearing the snake-like sound and feeling the pain he deserved for having such evil in him.

He couldn't talk later, and it was for the best, he thought, as Dumbledore's accusing eyes chased him back to his room. His yearmates stared and he broke this time because they were right. It was his fault that Dumbledore, who understood him even better than Hermione, had to hurt him. No matter how many times the man threatened to summon the embers directly into his throat, Harry still slipped up and let people hear the evil voice that dwelled inside him.

Years later, Harry woke in a forest with a burning arm beside broken pots and remembered Dumbledore's lesson. He wondered if he should try the embers himself this time.


	14. Their Education: Luna

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **Luna liked Snape, and she hated to be left out of things. She knew how to follow a trail.

Chapter 14: Their Education

**1 Year Later**

The year after Harry disappeared, Ron, Hermione, and Neville had started huddling together to whisper in the hallways and disappearing into the Room of Requirement for hours at a time even though they had cancelled the DA. Luna thought it was Nargles messing with them at first, but they kept getting stranger. As the year went on and Harry was spotted fighting against Death Eaters on several occasions, the public grew angry and confused, raging that the ministry had rescued him from Snape only to hide him from them. They said all kinds of nasty things about Harry in the papers. Luna knew the three students' behavior had to do with Harry, because that was when they started studying something constantly, but ignoring their classwork.

It had nothing to do with her, of course. Or at least, it didn't until the three of them never returned to Hogwarts after the holidays. The headmaster announced a few days after school started up again that they had decided to pursue early masteries instead of traditional schooling. It was very strange, something not ever done by Hogwarts students, and nearly everyone disapproved. Luna loved it. She wondered what their families thought, whether it was really possible for them to just quit school like that without repercussions.

Luna loathed Hogwarts, where she was forced to share a dorm room with students who stole her things and pushed her around, but she had never even thought that dropping out was an option. When the proof that it was possible presented itself to her, she was instantly captivated by it. She stopped doing her homework and devoted her full attention to studying potions, just like the other three had before her. Luna still attended her classes, and she learned from them even without homework. It really was the best of both worlds.

After half a year of devoted study, including her first summer skipping the Annual Lovegood Crumple-Horned SnorkackSearch, Luna realized she had gone as far as she could without guidance. Hogwarts couldn't teach her more. When she walked down the creaky, narrow wooden staircase from her bedroom to the kitchen early on the morning before school started and found her father staring pensively into his coffee, she knew the time had come. Her father was truly very self-destructive, and he always got that look on his face before he got an urge to go hunt something dangerous. Her mother had been the same way with spell experimentation, but the lesson of her death clearly hadn't sunk in with her father.

After her mother died, Luna had had to learn how to take care of herself, young child though she was. Her father was so absent-minded that he just assumed things like food and clothing and medicine just took care of themselves for other people, but he always groaned and made her take care of him if he got sick. She never knew when he would disappear on a hunt, so whenever she saw him getting ready to go, she tried to ask him about anything she needed that would come up in the next six months or so. This time, when she told him that she wanted to go Snape hunting instead of returning to school, he warned her to be careful without even looking up from his coffee and let her go on her way.

Some would call that neglectful, but Luna preferred that he trusted her. He helped her when he could, too; her only lead came from him. Snape had supposedly kidnapped Harry, but her father's sources had revealed that during the Death Eater attack on the alley the year before, Snape had fought against Dumbledore over Harry.

Luna didn't like Dumbledore very much. He had never helped her back when the other Ravenclaws always stole her stuff, even though he spied on everyone through the portraits. The blonde girl really hated sneaks, even more than she hated bullies. After her mother had died, all the other children she used to play with at the park had started picking on her, telling her that her mother had been crazy and it was good that she died. They told her that she was probably crazy too, and that she should die soon. Luna stopped going to the park after that.

She had run home crying, but there was no mother there to comfort her. Her father wasn't very tender, though he was always kind to her, so he told her that people thought she was crazy because she had been a seer, and people didn't understand what they couldn't see. He told her not to blame the other children, because they were hearing all those bad things from their parents. It was those adults who were sneaks, Luna decided. They were the ones who had always pretended to be friends with her mother, and then turned on her as soon as she died. Why couldn't they have just been honest from the beginning? There was no reason they'd had to pretend.

Dumbledore was just like those adults, hiding his true nature and keeping up appearances. If Professor Snape was fighting with him, Luna had no doubt that the headmaster was the real villain. So, she was willing to bet that Snape and Harry were together, and that there were three Hogwarts dropouts who knew where she could find them. Ron was the closest, so Luna slid down the snowy hill below her house to that park where she had played as a child, bounced to her feet, and trudged over to The Burrow to see if Ron was in. When she knocked on the door her usual seven times and stepped back, Mrs. Weasley appeared in the doorway. The woman clearly didn't know how to react to her, and told her Ron was out.

None of the Weasleys had teased her about her mother, so Luna tried to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, even though she usually hated adults who lived in the area. She wanted more information about Ron, so she invited herself in. She was the daughter of a journalist, after all; she knew how to follow a story.

"What's it like to have a son studying for his mastery?" Luna asked in true reporter style, hoping to startle the woman by jumping in with questions.

And the woman was clearly startled, wide-eyed as she was as Luna took a seat at the dining room table and patted the chair next to her invitingly. Mrs. Weasley sat and answered with a tight smile, "He's always studying when he's home, so I know he's really working hard. He spends so much time with Hermione and Neville away from here that it's almost as if he's still at Hogwarts, though."

"Where does he go?" Luna pressed, grey eyes unblinking as she focused her full attention on the interview.

"Oh, sometimes to the twins' shop, and other times to various libraries or his friends' houses. He can't seem to sit still," the woman answered, tension easing just a little as she focused on her son instead of her strange guest.

"Those wrackspurtswill do that to a young boy," Luna said. "But don't worry, Ginny should be fine, since she's a girl."

"Do you talk to her at school?" Molly asked, not bothering to question the mention of wrackspurts**, **though she clearly didn't understand. "Actually, why aren't you at school, dear? Don't tell me you've also dropped out."

"Well, not officially," Luna said, with a surge of irritation at the woman. She really didn't mind if people asked her what words meant. "I was hoping Ronald could help me find Snape."

Mrs. Weasley frowned, rising out of her chair to peer down at Luna. "Why does everyone keep bothering those poor kids? We're all so upset that Harry's disappeared, and that Severus of all people would do such a thing. The aurors have questioned my baby enough, so don't you start harassing him too!"

So Ronald hadn't told his family. Luna had no doubt that he and the other two knew the truth, whatever Mrs. Weasley believed. She knew better than to say that while the woman's aura was flickering so angrily, so she changed tactics.

"Where is Ronald now?" Luna asked.

"I think he was visiting his brothers' shop," the woman answered. "But don't you go dragging out those wounds. He's a sensitive boy and —"

"Yes, I can see his aura," Luna said. "I won't upset him."

Her mother had been a seer, and Luna had inherited just that bit of talent from her. She could read auras, so she understood people and saw through all disguises. Even if she only thought people were transparent because she could read auras, though, Luna still hated it when people couldn't understand her feelings just because she kept a straight face and an even voice. Annoyed, objective met, Luna stood to leave. Mrs. Weasley was completely oblivious to her annoyance, and probably felt guilty about being rude to a guest, so she insisted that Luna wait for her to pack a lunch for all of them.

Resigned, Luna took the lunch and borrowed the Weasley's floo to get to the joke shop. She had always liked the twins, much more than she liked their mother. They couldn't read her any better than the woman, but they saw the world differently than most people, and they were brilliant fun.

The joke shop was full of color and interesting devices in the shape of candy and body parts, and Luna relaxed the moment she stepped through the fireplace. She much preferred chaos and asymmetry to things people usually considered soothing. She didn't have much time to look around, because Hermione spotted her just as she was dusting the soot off of her skirt.

"Luna?" She asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Delivering lunch," Luna said, holding out the spelled bundle. "And looking for Professor Snape. Where's Neville?"

Luna didn't miss how Hermione and the three redheads at the counter beside her tensed when she mentioned the potions master. "Neville's working in his greenhouse," Hermione said slowly. "But, Luna, why would you look for Snape _here?" _

"Well, I'm sure he's with Harry, and I'm sure you all know where Harry is," Luna said. "The tuffs are telling me so." Tuffs, of course, were sparks in an aura that clung to other people's auras. Harry and Snape's tuffs were all over them.

To Luna's great surprise, Hermione didn't dismiss her like she had when they first met. "Tuffs are auric readings, right?"

"Nobody has ever known that before," Luna said in her usual tone, though inwardly she was pleased. Nobody but her father and devoted Divination students _ever_ knew what she was talking about.

"I've been researching a lot of things," Hermione said vaguely. "Hey, actually, what do you know about time travel?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," Luna said. "Demons have their secrets."

"Demons?" Hermione asked, apparently genuinely interested. It was definitely a strange day. Hermione even leaned in closer to Luna waiting for an answer, instead of backing away uncomfortably. The ravenclaw wasn't used to being taken so seriously.

"They live in hidden caves, near dark magic centers, so places like Knockturn Alley," Luna explained. "They're known for all sorts of complicated spells that distort time, but wizards don't talk about them."

"Why not?" Hermione asked, offering Luna a stool at the counter.

"Well, they're extremely dangerous," Luna said, taking the seat. Her dad had warned her about them when she liked to play in Knockturn Alley as a child. "Wizard magic doesn't work on them, but they feed off of it, so they're more likely to eat you than anything if you ever manage to find one."

"Don't even think about it, Hermione," Ron warned sharply, glaring at Luna just a little bit.

"But I have no other leads," the brunette complained. "I've exhausted all the ancient runes and arithmancy knowledge. I think I can figure out the magic behind a time turner, but anything more complex is beyond me, and —"

"_More _complex?" Fred asked, amused. "Time turners are one of the most complicated magical objects wizards have ever created. To even kind of understand how they work means you're absolutely brilliant. I don't know if there _is _anything more complex."

"Harry understands the math too," the girl said, sheepish. "He's still skeptical about time travel, but he's learned the theory with me. Ever since he locked away his —"

"Hermione!" Ron hissed, but Luna had already heard.

"Oh, is Harry trying for a mastery too?" Luna asked pleasantly, zeroing in on her target.

"No," Hermione said, ignoring Ron's frantic attempt to silence her. Girls really were more practical. "He'd have to go through the Ministry to get it, and they'd catch him. I guess there's no harm in telling you this, since you're here and all. Snape is teaching Harry survival skills, which is basically bits of every subject and lots of defense."

"And arithmancy?" Luna asked. She liked math, but it wasn't exactly a survival skill.

"Harry learned that in his free time," Ron said, resigned to being part of a group of bookworms. "There's not much to do where they are."

"There wouldn't be," Luna agreed. "Not somewhere where they can actually hide from Dumbledore. They're probably in the middle of nowhere."

They all stared at her again. She really did love to surpass expectations of her, especially when people were impressed instead of angry.

"Luna, what makes you think that they're hiding from the headmaster?" Hermione asked.

"Isn't it obvious? After he lied about Snape being a kidnapper, as if Snape would ever hurt a fly."

"Uh-huh…" Hermone murmured, but Luna was happy to note the amusement in the other girl's voice. It seemed like Hermione was starting to realize that Luna was playing with them. Only really perceptive people ever understood when Luna was playing.

"Merlin," Hermione said. "I really wish you had been around when we first found Harry. We didn't believe Snape was innocent until about a year ago."

The redheads just continued to stare at her, but Fred and George at least looked approving. All three boys still seemed content to let Hermione talk to Luna, something that would have to change soon.

"Poor Snape," Luna said. "He's so nice, so I don't know why everyone is so suspicious of him just because he's grumpy."

"Why are you looking for him?" Hermione asked, genuinely interested instead of defensive now.

"Well, you see, I'm going for my potions mastery, but I need a teacher for the top-level stuff. It's too dangerous to do it by myself."

"Wait, what?" Ron finally interrupted. "Why are you…?

"I thought it would be fun! Much more fun than Hogwarts," Luna said dreamily. "If I manage it this year, I'll be younger than the record holder by about a month!"

"Are you really that advanced?" Hermione asked.

"I think so," Luna said. "I have a very good memory."

"I see," Hermione said, blown away. "Ron and Neville still probably need another year to qualify, and they started before you."

"What about you?" Luna asked, thinking it odd that the intelligent witch hadn't included her own time estimate.

"Well, I'm not trying for one," Hermione said. "I've been researching."

"Time travel?" She caught on instantly. "That's kind of an extreme way to escape the headmaster, isn't it? Couldn't you just leave the country?"

Their faces turned bitter, and Luna could see the genuine agony flicker in their auras. Clearly, there was more to this than she had thought. The headmaster's crimes must have been serious, to make them all look like that.

"Harry will never be safe otherwise," Ron said. "He'll always have to wonder if Dumbledore will find him."

"The headmaster is too powerful," George added. "And none of us were able to help Harry when he needed us most, so —"

"We'll do it if we can," Fred finished. "We'd leave our lives here for him, even. But only Hermione thinks it's actually possible."

"Oh, I'm sure it's possible," Luna said. "But demon spells are dangerous, and talking to demons is dangerous enough by itself. You shouldn't do it unless you absolutely have to."

"You shouldn't have said that," Ron groaned. "Hermione with a cause is unstoppable. She thinks we absolutely have to."

"Well, you'd have to find the demons first…" Luna said, a bit concerned that she shouldn't have mentioned the possibility. She didn't want Hermione to be hurt, not when the girl had started to understand her.

"I'll investigate," Hermione said confidently, and Luna could see that Ron was right about her determination.

"Just please don't do anything reckless," Ron pleaded, with an edge of desperation that only Hermione missed. She wasn't smart about everything, apparently.

"I'm not suicidal, Ron," Hermione scoffed, looking at him as though he had just asked something elementary.

Ron grimaced, and Luna almost felt bad for the boy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They took her to Snape, of course. She started looking for him as soon as they apparated into the forest, but Harry's aura quickly drew her attention. Instead of its usual green, it was a muted grey, and ghostlike, with all of the emotion lines pinched shut.

"What did you do to yourself!" Luna yelled, sickened by the stunted aura. Everyone in the clearing stared at her, never having heard her yell before, but Luna ignored them as she stared at Harry. Normally, she left people's suffering unspoken, just as she preferred them to do for her, but this warped aura was too twisted to ignore.

"Luna, what are you doing here?" Harry asked.

"What did you _do?" _Luna repeated, eyeing him closely. "Can you feel _anything? _Or was it the headmaster who did this to you? Was that his crime?"

"Ron, why is she here?" Harry asked his friend.

Luna refused to be ignored. "Can you fix it?" she interrupted when Ron opened his mouth to speak. "Or are you stuck in this half-state forever? How are you even alive with an aura like that?"

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, but Luna saw that Snape understood her and knew she wouldn't leave off until she had her answer.

"We have not found a way to cure him," Snape said, clinically. "It was caused by reckless mind magic, not the headmaster. He feels things like fear and compassion, but he seems immune to emotions like grief or joy. And as far as we can tell, it's not fatal."

"I don't see the problem," Harry said, in a tone that suggested this was an old discussion, though there was no annoyance in his voice.

"We know," Ron said gently. "But we want you back, Harry. You need emotions to heal."

"I don't want to suffer the pain of those memories," Harry said. "Especially when I can never escape him."

They all rushed to reassure him like concerned parents fawning over a crying child, but Hermione got the first word. "I _will _find a way to go back, Harry," she said. "Luna gave me a great lead."

"Did she?" Snape asked, eyeing the ravenclaw curiously. His aura flared up in interest as he examined her. "She certainly is perceptive, isn't she? But I believe Harry's question still stands, Miss Lovegood. What are you doing here?"

Luna understood why Hermione wanted time travel. The sheer agony rippling under Harry's suppressed aura was mind-boggling. When his emotion lines were fixed, if they were fixed, he was going to be flooded with it. Harry's friends clearly didn't believe that they could abandon him to that kind of suffering. Harry was the kind of person you wanted to help, once you understood him, because he would do the same for you. Even Luna wanted to ease his suffering.

She'd been bullied. It was a fact of her life, and one she had long since decided to ignore as much as she could, though she still loathed the world that let it happen to her. It had been innocent enough at first, being called Loony, shoves in the hallway, having her things scattered about, but Harry had been furious when he realized what was happening to her. He'd helped her find her things, and tried to convince her to report the bullies. When she was hurt after the bullying went too far, he'd found her and taken her to the hospital wing, and then hunted down and threatened the girls who hurt her. He told her it was the gryffindor thing to do.

It was probably the only time in her life that someone had actually tried to protect her instead of leaving her to take care of herself. Even though Luna liked people to leave her to herself, she had been touched. Some part of her that she had locked away after her mother died reopened then, and the hope rose in her chest that maybe, just maybe, Harry could truly be her friend. Neville had been a friend to her too, in his quiet, lonely way; he kept her company sometimes in the gardens. But Harry was the one who had truly won her affection.

"I think I'll time travel with you," Luna said.

"Wait, Luna," Hermione said. "Why would you…?"

"What about your father?" Ron asked. "Would you really just abandon him?"

"I've been thinking about it since you first explained a few minutes ago, and I'm the only one here who can read auras, so I feel somewhat responsible," Luna said. "Daddy won't miss me, and I never know when he's going to do something dangerous and die anyway. Harry and Neville are my only friends, so I'd like to help them."

Hermione looked pained, and Luna wasn't stupid; she knew Hermione was pitying her. She didn't quite understand it, because apparently everyone helping Harry felt the same. None of them had any other important bonds in the world besides Harry. They were all outcasts somehow, willing to completely abandon everyone and everything they knew just to help him heal.

"I can be your friend too, Luna," Hermione said, guilt bleeding into her voice. Hermione hadn't always been nice to her, but Luna didn't care if people were mean if they were being honest to themselves, and Hermione had only been mean to her because she tried to understand Luna and couldn't. But now, even though none of them said it out loud, it was obvious that all of them understood each other a little bit. They had all gotten seperated from society somehow.

"That means you're my first female friend. How nice," Luna said, taking Hermione's arm affectionately.

"This is all very touching," Snape drawled. "But I still don't know what you're doing here. Do you think this is a field trip? Do all of you think this is _fun? _ Are you just going to keep inviting children to join us until all of Hogwarts is visiting us in this forest? I don't care if you want to join us. I will not have it."

"You're a nice adult, Professor Snape," Luna said. "Harry's lucky to have you looking after him."

Snape stared at her, taken aback.

"Uhh, want to run that one by me again?" Ron asked. He was looking at Luna with new eyes, but he still clearly thought of her as loony.

"He wants to protect her," George explained, picking up what his brother had not. "He doesn't want her to risk getting hurt by joining us. For some reason, her life is worth more to him than all of ours, or something."

"I believe I told _all _of youto leave at some point," Snape observed, exasperated.

"And they didn't do it," Luna observed. "I don't think I will either, unless you force me too. I'll be much safer here as your apprentice than on my own, professor. But if you _want _me to attempt mastery-level potions in my basement without supervision, I guess that I could try it. I can just come back to you when I burn my face off, or something similar."

Snape looked pained. "Please, Miss Lovegood, don't go blow yourself up because I won't let you play with the other children. _Why _must you children keep coming to me? Isn't it clear that I don't teach anymore? I'm living in a godforsaken forest!"

"Aren't you teaching Harry survival skills?" Luna challenged pleasantly. "Please, professor, I'm so close to a mastery. Wouldn't it be pleasant to talk with someone who understands about potions?"

Luna could see the man taking in her low height and slight figure. "You really are just a child, aren't you?" Snape murmured, but Luna could tell that he actually believed her when she said she had the skill. He had been a young master himself, after all.

"Is that a yes?" Luna asked slyly.

"You have to understand that this is dangerous," Snape told her. "If the headmaster were to find us here, or if any of us were to spend too much time around that _thing _inside Harry, you could be seriously hurt in ways you'd never even imagine, or even killed."

"He's right, Luna," Hermione agreed. "Is he really the only potions master you could find?"

Luna didn't frown, but a normal person would have. She didn't know what the thing was, but she was almost completely certain that she didn't care. "So, only I have to leave? I don't get to decide what I want to do with my life? I want to offer it to Harry like the rest of you."

"Luna —" Hermione started, but fell silent the moment Harry started to speak. Everyone seemed captivated by the sound of his voice, which is another reason Luna thought they needed her. She wanted to fix Harry, and she cared about him, but she wasn't going to get all emotional about it like the rest of them.

"I wish all of you would stop offering me your lives like I was some kind of soul devourer," Harry muttered.

"Just accept our loyalty, Harry," Ron snapped. "All of us love you."

"Well, I'm not sure that I love anyone," Luna said. She hadn't felt that strongly about anyone since her mother died.

"Finally, some sense," Harry said.

"But," she continued, ignoring the interruption. "I feel like I'm supposed to be here. I think I've finally found my Blibbering Humdinger. Harry, will you let me stay?"

"What's a Blibbering Humdinger?" Ron interrupted.

It was one of the many imaginary creatures her father believed in. "It's the thing I've been looking for for a long time," Luna said. "It brings safety and friendship."

"So you're still being bullied, then?" Harry asked. "That's why you don't want to go back, right?

"Bullied?" Snape asked, eyes sharpening like a hunting dog's.

"The other ravenclaws bully her," Harry explained to the former professor. "She even got pushed down the stairs once, and I had to take her to the hospital wing. "

Snape stared at the slight blonde girl with the far-away look in her eyes. She really did have a lot in common with him, being small and strange and bullied and neglected and fond of potions. "I suppose you're staying, then," he said.

"I knew you were nice!" Luna cheered.

_Nice? _Ron mouthed at Hermione, aghast. He and Snape had an uneasy truce, but he certainly wouldn't call the man _nice. _

All in all, Luna thought it had been a good day.

Luna is the last person who will be joining their little group, and I was having a hard time with her character at first, but I think I've got a grasp on it now — confident, but sad and wary. She's very sharp. Also, for those of you who have been waiting, chapter 16 will be when they finally time travel. It's taken so long because I've always thought that deciding to go back in time in a chapter always undermines how many factors have to go into that decision.

I hope you liked the update! Please read and review, even if it's just a teensy weensy little baby comment. I'd really appreciate hearing what you thought of this chapter!

Also, don't forget that you can **request a drabble **to help me out. There were no requests last chapter, so I'll post another old one, about Fred and George, who haven't been getting much attention in the past few chapters:

**Drabble: Twins**

Ron had just been born, and Fred and George were very angry. He was given their old baby clothes, and they burned with something sinister and empty every time they saw him in a different outfit. They'd had to share their clothing — and still did — but ickle Ronnikins got both of their outfits all to himself.

Ronald played with their old toys, taking to a little set of trains that he would chase all over the house, and even into their bedroom because when they shut the door with the train inside it, their mom would berate them for bullying their brother. She never got *Ron's* name wrong.

He ran into their room and crawled under the bed, pure delight on his toothless, slobbery face as he pursued the train. Fred grinned at George with malicious glee, and they both snuck from the room, shutting the door behind them and leaving the baby trapped.

Hours passed, and their Mom passed by them in the living room, asking if they'd seen Ronald because he must have slipped out of his monitoring bracelet again and she couldn't find him. They shrugged, and she kept looking as they basked in the glory of revenge. But their mother continued to work herself up into a panic, unable to find her favorite son in any of his favorite spots and too nervous to check less obvious places.

George sighed and Fred knew that his brother had given in. They wanted their mother to like them, and this wasn't going to please her. Secretly, they crept up the stairs and returned to their room, finding Ron still under the bed, cowering and clutching the train in his chubby little hands. His cheeks were bright red and his nose was dripping as he sobbed. Then, he saw them. Then, his eyes lit up, and his toothless grin returned full force and he ran at them and said his first words. "Gred" and "Forge," he babbled at them with relief.

They brought him back to their Mom and she fussed over him then turned to them and held them in her arms, smothering them with kisses. They made a show of rubbing off her slobber, but smiled to each other when she turned back to Ron, cooing at him with praise for his babytalk. She didn't think their new nicknames were words, but the twins knew better.

Later, Fred began to leave the house more often to play with the neighborhood children while George stayed in and read books. They would make themselves different so that, maybe then, their mother would see them as individuals and love them the way she loved Ron. When she began to chastise Fred and compare him to George, finding the more adventurous twin lacking, they realized that being different meant one of them would always be left behind.

Ron found them moping on the doorstep and patted them each on the knee, looking very cute while trying to be comforting. He pouted when his brothers laughed at him and headed inside to exchange outfits and rename themselves Gred and Forge. They decided that it wasn't so bad if Ronald was the center of attention, after all.


	15. Their Hope: Hermione

**Summary**: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het

**Chapter Summary: **The moment she realized that her dad was screwing the neighbor, Hermione stopped doing anything for pleasure. She started doing everything she could to make people appreciate her, so they wouldn't leave her like he did; the bigger the sacrifice, the greater the appreciation. This sacrifice would be so big that Harry and the others would appreciate her forever.

Chapter 15: Their Hope

Hermione leaned forward when she sat down, protectively hovering over her books so that nobody would see what she was reading. Her eyes flickered regularly from the pages to the surrounding library, finding it empty but for the drowsy-eyed muggles who worked there. A muggle library wasn't the best place to be reading books about demons, so it felt like she was doing something forbidden, something that would get her in trouble.

The thought of Harry quivering in his sleep sent her eyes back down to the pages. Even though everyone had gotten happier since Luna joined them — well, except for Harry because he couldn't feel anything right now — Hermione wouldn't be satisfied until she could send them back in time. The way she saw it, there were two great things about her plan. First, Dumbledore and the public wouldn't be looking for them, so Harry would have enough room to heal, and second, they might actually be able to punish the man for what he had done.

Hermione was big on justice; it was why the hat put her in Gryffindor, though she hadn't been so big on justice until the summer after second year when she found out about her father. She'd gone to the kitchen window when she saw him outside one night not long after she'd gotten home, and as she'd been peering through the blinds to see what he was doing out there, she saw him kissing the neighbor. She'd stared for a long time, then run as fast as she could up the stairs to her room when she saw him turn back towards the house.

Heart pounding, back against her bedroom door, she tried to deny what she'd seen. She couldn't have really understood what was going on. Maybe, she told herself, there was some reason for it, some explanation that somehow made it okay. Maybe he hadn't actually been having an affair that year instead of worrying about his petrified daughter.

She'd gone to the library to search for an explanation, but the psychology books and romance novels revealed the disgusting truth to her. People did things like cheating all the time. She couldn't deny what she had seen any longer. But she couldn't bring herself to confront him or tell her mother about it either. For months, she barely spoke to anyone, but her parents assumed it was a side-effect of being petrified. She tried to forget it, to push it down so that it didn't stain every interaction she had with her parents, but she couldn't do it.

Every time she thought she was getting better, she remembered that he didn't care about their family anymore, that maybe he never had. People had always thought she was weird because she liked books so much, but her parents had always praised her. Her dad used to pat her head and tell her to always be herself and do the right thing no matter what.

It sickened Hermione just to think about it. She didn't want her mom to feel as sad as she did, so she couldn't tell her — she couldn't tell anybody — and she felt just as bad about about that as she did about her father's betrayal.

People would tell her it was weak of her, but instead of being angry at him for his faults, she turned the blame on herself. She felt as though she and her mother hadn't done enough, accomplished enough, sacrificed enough, to make him love them. She began to worry that Harry and Ron might leave her too. After that, everything she did, all of the studying and research that had once been fun for her, was terrifying. She always worried that if she didn't do enough, if she didn't help her boys enough, they would betray her just like her father had.

So wanting to go back in time was actually a bit selfish of her. Demons that fed on magic? Great! The more dangerous her research was, the more likely she was to earn their love. She knew they were better than her father, and she tried to tell herself that they would love her no matter what. But with Harry unable to feel emotion and her growing need to have Ron truly be hers forever, she couldn't quiet the nervous current of energy running through her. She couldn't just abandon this chance to help her friends.

Hermione took a deep breath and shut her book, then stood up and started putting her notes away. It was dark now, so that meant it was time to go to Knockturn Alley. Over the past few months, she had done as much research as she could, but found frustratingly little. Dark arts compendiums had given her most of her information.

Demons were creatures who never slept. They easily slipped through time to follow strong magical currents and escape people who were hunting them, and could even manipulate the memories of hundreds of people if they had to to establish a place in new times as if they'd always been there. Like Luna said, they lived in dark magic centers, usually damp underground caverns, because they fed on magic, and the despair that usually accompanied dark magic was especially delicious to them. And, the tidbit that was most important to Hermione: they'd been known to make deals with humans and share their knowledge, for a price.

She couldn't find information on the price, but she kept looking for them in Knockturn Alley anyway. She'd taken to exploring every night, and she had become intimately familiar with the wizarding sewage system, which was much cleaner and better lit than she had imagined. It certainly wouldn't appeal to demons.

A few times, she'd had heart-pounding run-ins with suspicious men and had to flee and even fight them off to stay unharmed. So far, she had escaped to safety each time. Still, she found nothing. Finally, armed with the spell-creation knowledge she had gathered while researching time travel, Hermione had created a dark magic detection spell that dowsed the strongest dark magic within a mile of the caster.

Hermione had growled out loud when it led her to a spot _above_ ground, in the center of the alley. She couldn't very well get underground from there, so she still had to go skulking around the area looking for an entrance. She had looked for days and days and days after that, and she still hadn't found something that even _looked _like a cavern entrance anywhere around the alley until the previous night.

It had been a complete accident; she dove into some bushes to hide from someone passing by her. Many thankfully non-poisonous scratches later, she'd noticed the hole when she nearly fell into it. It was small, just big enough for one person to fit through, and as far as she could tell, it led down into a giant cavern. Very, very far down.

Always cautious even though she had Gryffindor recklessness in her too, Hermione had retreated back to the library the next day where she could review her information on demons without the others questioning her. She'd never been a good flier, so just the thought of going through that hole into the cavern was terrifying. No brooms could fit through it longways, so she would have to hold the broom and then jump on it in mid-air when she started to fall. Thinking about that made her wonder if she should tell the others like she'd promised to do. Facing demons was probably better with backup.

Then she thought how happy they'd be when she appeared with the answer, instead of having to risk their lives yet again without knowing if they would even find something. She thought of the ministry, of _Malfoy chasing her and swinging her legs so fast they burned and flying debris and the strangled noise the clerk had made as a casual spell slit her throat and then that bloodcurdling yell and blood dripping from Ron's eye._

She couldn't let them get hurt for another one of her risky plans. She would face the danger alone, and try some fancy spell work instead of the dangerous trick with the broom. Nervous, but excited to finally prove herself once and for all, Hermione returned to Knockturn Alley and found the hole. When she dove through, she held her wand extended towards the ground. She cast a cushioning charm towards it, the first of several she had planned to break her fall. As usual, she felt the tingle of magic in her extend through her wand, but just as the magic reached the tip, it twisted, shooting off somewhere else.

Hermione was so shocked that she didn't even have enough time to scream before she hit the ground. Her left shoulder was caught underneath her body as it struck — she heard the crunch and the sound of her own scream as it broke against the stone.

"Uu—h," Hermione moaned, barely able to think through the agony.

She lay there in pain, and all she could hear was her rasping breath and the trickle of water within the cavern. All other sensations fled before the burn of bone piercing through her skin, broken blood vessels pulsing around it in time with her heart. _Will I die right here? _She wondered.

After several minutes of berating herself for getting hurt so early in the adventure, she used her good arm to struggle to her feet. By the time she was standing, a sheen of sweat glistened on her face, and her clothes stuck uncomfortably to her skin.

Merlin, her shoulder hurt. She tried to cast a numbing spell on it, but again, the magic twisted and disappeared.

_Demons feed off of magic. _Hermione recalled. Casting more spells would be a bad idea.

She glanced back up to the hole in the top of the cave, eyes manic and scared in the darkness. There was no way she could get out without bargaining with the demons now.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Hermione pressed on. The ground was rocky and uneven, and not much light shone in through the one hole in the ceiling. As she moved further from the entrance, it got harder and harder to see, until it was so bad that she had to hold her hands in front of her to make sure she didn't run into a wall. _I wish I could — but no, even a lumos would be absorbed, _she thought.

She was starting to shiver, too, either from the cavernous temperatures or the blood loss. Hermione walked and stumbled and walked, with only the sounds of her scraping footsteps and ragged gasping to keep her company. It got to the point where she was putting one foot in front of the other automatically, barely conscious as she pushed herself forward.

She was thoroughly lost within the caverns when she finally realized her mistake. Surely, the demons had known she was there the moment she cast that first cushioning charm. If they hadn't appeared yet, it was because they were waiting for something.

"Are you there?" She gasped, stopping and nearly toppling over at the dizziness that surged through her. "I've come to make a deal with you."

After the echo of her terrified voice faded, a high-pitched, almost purring voice spoke from the shadows. "And why should we bargain with you, little witch, when we can just wait for you to die here and then suck your magic dry?"

Mind spinning, pulse racing, Hermione couldn't help but see the demon's point. Her eyes strained in the darkness, but she couldn't spot it. She imagined how weak she must appear to them. "You've made bargains before," she called out, straining her ears to try to pinpoint the demon. "So there must be something you can get from wizards who cooperate that you won't get if you just let me die."

"Clever girl," the demon purred, it's voice seeming to come from all sides of her at once. "So then, what price will you pay to get what _you_ desire, hmmm?"

"Anything I have to offer," Hermione said.

"Even your life?" The demon challenged, and the shadows in the cave spread wider in anticipation, as if there were hordes of monsters ready to consume her.

Hermione gulped, heart pounding even as everything seemed to be in slow motion. She had known what she was getting into as soon as she realized her magic wasn't working. As the shadows danced around her, grotesquely flickering black and grey, Hermione thought about dying. She knew the question was serious.

She didn't want to die. She wanted to tell it no, to refuse to offer up her life in exchange for a spell, of all things. Her friends wouldn't want that. But Hermione kept thinking, and she realized that there was no way for her to get out of the cavern alive. She couldn't use her magic, and nobody would ever find her down there.

But she didn't want to die. She didn't want to leave the world without having been really, truly in love with someone who would never betray her. On the other hand, if she sacrificed her _life _for this, she knew Harry and Ron, and maybe even the others, would love her forever.

"I'm wai-ting_," _chimed the demon, unnervingly like a human child.

Merlin, she hoped there was an afterlife. Dizzy, sweating, unable to force any sound out of her throat, Hermione bobbed her head. And then the shadows shifted again, and she realized the flickering darkness wasn't shadow; it was the demon itself. The darkness danced towards her, a foamy, amorphous substance that could probably take on whatever shape it wanted. Goosebumps sprang up as the cold mist brushed against her skin, wrapping around her ankles and spreading up under her clothes and over her body.

Hermione tried to shake it off, but found that she couldn't move. She'd thought she'd have a little more time. How would she give the spell to Harry if she died alone in this cavern? Tears welled in her eyes as the demon mist crawled up her neck, and she opened her mouth to try to force the words out again, to fix this this _thing _she had done to herself for absolutely nothing, and as her lips parted, as her voice finally rose in her throat, the dark, numbing foam poured inside it, and then through her nose, and her eyes and her ears and through her bloodstream and she finally understood that this wasn't just death this was _possession _and _what had she done _and _why_ hadn't she learned occlumency and, and — suddenly, she could feel her limbs again.

Suddenly, she _knew_ how to send everyone back in time. The knowledge appeared in her head as if it had always been there, but Hermione could feel the demon's presence stirring around inside of her. She knew the price of the spell now too, and it was her life and something more, and even though she didn't want to die — just the thought brought tears to her eyes — she knew that it was a price she could pay.

The demon spell was perfect. It was even more perfect than she had expected, and her mind was already racing about how she could use it to make everyone happy again. An ironic joy bubbled up inside her and she giggled, some of the old pleasure she used to feel when she accomplished a really hard spell coming back to her now that she wouldn't ever have to worry about whether people loved her again. The demon would sustain her life until she finished casting the spell, and then it would take her, but instead of the grief she had felt just moments ago, Hermione felt invincible. For the next few months she took to prepare the spell, nothing could kill her.

.

"I can't tell them, of course," Hermione murmured to herself.

If she told the others that the spell would mean her death, they would never let her cast it. She knew they would feel betrayed when she died, but even though more hurt was the last thing they needed, Hermione knew they needed time travel even more. She would fix things for them so that they would finally be able to heal_. _Hermione kind of felt like God. She might even be able to get rid of the Horcrux inside Harry, if she played this right.

_Yes, _a voice purred within her. _I would be more than happy to absorb that delicious chunk of dark magic for you. _

Hermione didn't even jump at the demon's voice. She'd known it was possessing her, after all. It was in her head, sifting through all of her thoughts, so there was really no reason for her to direct her thoughts at it specifically. She knew everything that it knew for as long as it was possessing her.

Even though she no longer felt the pain of her shattered shoulder, Hermione could feel the weakness from blood loss and physical stress starting to tug at her consciousness. She would pass out soon, and it was best that she did it where someone would be there to heal her. She would have to tell everybody that the injury was her sacrifice for the spell, and hope they bought it. Water welled up in her eyes again, blurring her vision. Nobody would know that she was dying; nobody would celebrate her accomplishment while she was still alive.

Clouds had rolled over the moon at some point, leaving Hermione in a void of inky darkness. Cold air swirled over her skin, but her angry heart pumped warm blood furiously throughout her body, filling her with such a feverish heat that she could barely breathe. Standing with her shoulders hunched and her eyes clenched shut to hide the tears trying to escape them, she allowed the scream that had been building within her to tear out of her throat, cutting through the empty cavern air for as long as she could hold it there. When the last bit of air left her lungs, Hermione could hear the echo of her scream.

It was like the sound of someone being tortured. She grimaced, ashamed of herself for allowing such a spoiled reaction to all this. She was doing this for Harry and Ron and everybody else, but here she was wanting to be the center of their attention. Harry and Snape, and Ron too, had been hurt much worse than her with her broken shoulder, which the demon had numbed so that she wasn't even suffering. Hermione told herself that she should be happy — she had finally found the thing she was born to do, the meaning of her life.

She would correct the world.

Calm again, hoping that her emotions were back under control, Hermione apparated back to the forest. She appeared right beside the campfire and stumbled as she landed, dangerously close to the flames.

"Hermione!" Ron yelled, and she felt strong hands steadying her, bodies gathering around her as the others rushed to her aid.

"I got the spell," Hermione said, surprising herself with the roughness of her own voice. Despite everything, she grinned at him, eyes vigorous with triumph. "From the demon, Ron. I got it!"

"You idiot!" Ron hissed, lowering both of them to the ground as Hermione lost her strength and fell fully into his arms. "You promised not to be reckless."

"I didn't want you to get hurt again, Ron," Hermione said, with eyes only for him. She could see the others crowding around them, peering down at her in concern, but Ron was the center of her world. Just seeing him filled her heart. "Please don't be mad."

Ron made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a choke, and took one of her hands in his. "Of course I'm not mad, Hermione. I could never be —"

"Let me see her," Snape interrupted, likely noticing her eyes start to glaze over.

The others shifted to allow the professor to kneel beside Hermione, where her head was rested in Ron's lap. He cast some wordless diagnostic spells and started snarling orders at Luna for what potions they needed as he tore the blood-soaked sleeve from her robes.

"Oh Merlin —" Ron choked as he saw her arm. "Is that _bone?"_

"Yes," Snape said, taking the first of the potions Luna brought and forcing Hermione to swallow it. "She's magically exhausted, her nerves are hyper-sensitized like someone after the cruciatus curse, and her shoulder is snapped and partially shattered."

He continued feeding her potions as he spoke, face dark and serious as he worked. Hermione swallowed obediently, touched by their attention. She wanted to tell them that she didn't need the pain potions, but her voice had left her again. Hermione settled for watching Ron, whose eyebrows were drooped pitifully as he struggled not to show just how upset he was. She brought her good hand back to his and squeezed it reassuringly, smiling up at him. He smiled back, painfully, and that was the last thing she saw before she lost consciousness.

She woke again with a jerk what felt like moments later, but saw the sun shining through the canopy of trees, and knew that time had passed. Luna was the first one to her side, knowing she was conscious again before she even shifted. A blanket slid from her shoulders as she sat up. She didn't even need to look to know that everybody was there, waiting for her to awaken. The demon in her sensed the magic of each one of them, like beacons calling out to her.

"Do you hurt at all?" Luna asked gently, as if she were talking to an invalid. "Do you have the strength to be sitting up?"

"I'm fine," Hermione said, patting the other girl's arm reassuringly.

She and Luna truly had hit it off, bonding in a way that only girls could. Once she had realized that Luna read auras, half of the things the younger girl said made sense to her, and Hermione had no doubt that Luna knew far more about magic than all of them. She had been the one to think of demons, after all, even if only she, Neville, and Hermione actually believed time travel was possible. Well, events had proven the ravenclaw right.

Luna had done wonders for more than just Hermione, integrating herself among their group as if she had been with them for years. To everyone's shock, she and Snape got on very well. Their high-level conversations about potions baffled even Hermione, and the tiny girl was prepared to try for her mastery in very short order.

Something about her getting along with Snape eased the tension among the boys, and when Ron and the twins saw how easily she joked around with Snape, they noticed the man's previously hidden prankster potential. Ever since then, Snape and the twins had held a relentless prank war that helped ease the group's tension even further. Snape acted annoyed, of course, but they all knew he was having fun. Luna had helped them read him better. Now that they knew about the horcrux, it was easy enough to regulate the time the potions master spend around Harry so that he wouldn't be affected by it any longer.

But even though they were all much happier now that she had joined them, Hermione knew that not everything was alright. It had been Snape who explained to Luna what Dumbledore had done to Harry and him. He had been confronting her about her neglectful father, and had needed to share his own childhood neglect, abuse, and bullying to relax her. When Hermione had heard all of that, she had vowed that she would help Snape just as much as she was helping Harry by learning to time travel. They were all suffering from some kind of scars, and it would probably be best for all of them to escape to new lives.

That was why Hermione couldn't be selfish and try to share her own scars, when they were all suffering so much more than her.

"I found it," Hermione told them, snatching Luna's hands in her own enthusiastically. "I got the spell from the demon, Luna!"

Luna didn't look as happy as Hermione had expected her to. "And what did you have to sacrifice to get it?"

"A lot of magic," Hermione answered, having already thought about what she would say. "I might not have as much power as before. And pain — the demons apparently feed off of suffering as much as magic, so my consenting to pain, to what happened to my arm, was more delicious to them than just sucking my magic dry."

Arms embraced her strongly from behind, a red-topped head resting on her shoulder. "You're amazing, Hermione," Ron said breathlessly. "You're smart and strong and amazing, but please don't do dangerous things like this again, especially alone. I-we couldn't bear to lose you. Don't sacrifice anything else."

"Well, I wouldn't want to go through that again either," Hermione agreed lightly. "But Ron, you do understand that I _had _to get that spell, right?"

"For Harry," Ron sighed. "Yeah, I get it."

"For Harry and Snape, the only way to be safe is to get away from Dumbledore at his most powerful," Hermione said, wiggling her shoulder experimentally.

"How does it feel?" Snape asked, noticing her movement instantly.

"Just fine," Hermione said. Of course, it hadn't hurt when it was broken, either. "Thank you, professor."

"I'm not a professor anymore," the man said. "You may call me Severus."

Hermione was surprisingly touched at the show of respect. "Alright, Severus," she said. "Thank you."

"Awww, you never gave _us _permission to call you Severus," whined Fred. Hermione could suddenly tell the twins apart.

"Nor will I," Snape said haughtily without even turning to look at the redhead. "You dunderheads massacre my name enough as it is without my permission. I can't imagine what you'd do to it if I actually _let _you address me by name."

"Awww, Uncle Sevvie, how could you say such things about us?" the prankster complained.

"Uncle!" Severus spluttered, jaw working up and down in surprise.

The expression was so unnatural on the man that Hermione cracked up, and the others quickly joined in. Her heart warmed at the sound, and she felt again that she was doing the right thing.

"Well, you are sort of like an uncle," Hermione said, her smile in her voice.

"You look after us," Neville said, "And you've never thrown me out of a window like my real uncle did."

"Out a window!" Ron asked, appalled. "And he's not in jail?"

"He was trying to force me to use accidental magic," Neville explained, sheepish under the group's full attention. "I guess he assumed that if I was a squib, I was better off dead anyway."

"That's terrible," Luna said in her even voice, but Hermione could feel the sincerity behind it.

"Yeah," Neville admitted, as if he had never acknowledged it before. "I guess it really is."

"Good thing you have Uncle Severus then!" George jibed, trying to lift the mood again.

Severus rolled his eyes, but didn't object this time.

"That gives me an idea!" Hermione said, leaning forward enthusiastically.

"Uh-oh," Ron teased. "I hope you don't plan to break your legs this time."

Hermione stuck out her tongue at him. "When we go back in time, we'll have to have new identities, right? We can't just be ourselves. There's no reason that Severus can't actually be our uncle, or even our father if that works better."

"Father?" Ron asked, clearly unenthusiastic.

"_All_ of you are supposed to be mine?" Severus asked, agreeing with Ron for once. "Even if people believed us, that would draw too much attention."

"How about a few families?" Hermione asked. "We could be related if we want, but it doesn't matter either way. Severus could be Harry and Neville's father, and maybe Luna's too?"

"He'd better be mine," Luna said. "I'd like a father like Severus."

"What about the rest of us?" Ron asked. "Me and Fred and George are obviously related, but what about you? And wouldn't people want to know about our parents?"

"Why don't you tell us about the spell first," Neville said. "Harry's pretending not to listen over there, but he's paying attention."

"I'm not pretending anything," Harry said. "I'mjust wondering why all eight of us have to go back in time. And how are we supposed to accomplish anything when we get there if we're all strangers? We won't have any power."

"We'll get some, Harry," Neville said. Neville was the most patient with Harry like this.

"You're bloody hell right we will," Ron agreed, nudging Neville agreeably.

"Why don't you tell us more about the spell," Snape said, trying to get them back on topic.

"Alright," Hermione said. "The first thing I should tell you is that it's more like a ritual than a spell, with focal points and runes and everything. The other thing you have to know is that only the caster can know the particulars of how it works and what exactly will happen, or it won't work right."

"That's dumb," Ron complained. "Why?"

"Well, the caster is at the center of the runes, as the main conduit for the magic, and —"

"This will go way over my head, won't it?" Ron asked.

"Probably," Hermione said. In truth, she was making all of this up so that she wouldn't have to tell them that any human who cast a demon spell would die.

"Alright, go on," Ron sighed.

"The ritual is really a combination of several spells," Hermione said. "It controls time in two ways; it sends physical bodies back in time, but it can also change the time surrounding the physical bodies, so that they get younger, if the spellcaster chooses. So, for example, Fred and George could be the three-year-olds they really are if they want to."

"Over my dead body," Snape muttered.

"Right, well, I think the way we'll have to do this is for everyone to talk to me separately," Hermione said. "I'm the only one who can know what ages you all pick, or the spells won't work right, so you can't tell each other or all decide as a group, got it? This is really important."

"Got it," Luna said, and the others nodded in agreement.

"So, now we have to figure out —"

"Not quite yet, Neville," Hermione said. "That's not all the spell does."

"There's _more?" _one of the twins asked.

"I told you it's an amazing ritual," Hermione said. "Demons also have mass memory-altering spells."

"Mass…?" Severus looked stunned.

"So, we won't just have to make up identities and forge paperwork. We can actually alter memories so that it's like we've always been there. I'll do some research and find somewhere in the Registry where we can fit. Basically, it means that we can make up our NEWT scores and masteries and school records, and any back stories we think we should have, and people won't be suspicious because they'll _remember. _The spell will alter their memories."

"It really is like getting a new life," Harry said, drawing all of their eyes to him.

"That's good, isn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Harry agreed, finally convinced that time travel was the right idea. "I think I can agree with this after all."

Hermione beamed.

"Can such a perfect ritual really come at such a small cost?" Severus asked, eyeing the Gryffindor girl sharply. Hermione could feel his eyes prying into her, but the demon assured her that the man wouldn't be able to read her mind while it was possessing her.

"My arm wasn't the —"

"Hermione wouldn't lie!" Ron snarled, glaring at Severus for even suggesting it. "If Hermione says she can do it, then she will."

"_Ron!" _Hermione hissed, guilt stirring at his defense. "You're being rude."

"No," Severus said, holding up a hand to stop the argument. "He's right, Miss Granger. You've proven yourself time and time again. I'm sorry for insinuating that I did not believe you."

Ron nodded, satisfied. He and Severus had slowly been building their truce, to everyone's great relief. Everything really was looking up.

"Well, we can start having meetings soon, but we should probably take a couple of weeks to plan before we do it," Hermione said. "If there's anything left that you have to do in the present, you should try to do it soon."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sooo….yeah. I've purposely avoided using Hermione's point of view until now. Did anyone notice? I keep fluctuating on how I feel about this chapter; I love it one day and think it's bad the next. I worry that it isn't action-oriented enough, but I'm dying to get to time travel, as I'm sure other people are too, so I'm not going to worry too much about it. They'll use the ritual at the end of next chapter.

Also, I was wondering if any of the people who were reading this fic before I stopped updating for a year are still following it. If you are, I'd love to hear from you. Everybody else, I'd love your feedback too! I'm feeling a little lonely with so many views/alerts but so few reviews….


	16. Their Goodbye Part 1: Multi

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Categories: **Time Travel, AU, Severitus (I think…)

**Chapter Summary: **They all met with Hermione, they made plans that only she knew, but they trusted her. She'd earned it. None of them expected this.

Chapter 16: Their Goodbye Pt. 1

Granger had been remarkable. She had demonstrated astounding courage and compassion in confronting the demons alone, and somehow bargained her way out with exactly the spell that they needed. She'd ignored all of their skepticism and discouragement just to pursue a spell that shouldn't be possible, and then she'd proven that she was willing to pay the price for it.

She'd nearly sacrificed everything.

Severus scowled at the thought of her giving up a portion of her magic. It was such a Gryffindorish thing to do — reckless, masochistic, and mistrustful.

If she had been any other student, he would have chastised her for it. No adult figure should encourage children to undervalue their lives that way, and even though other professors would have praised her courage, Severus would prefer to condemn it.

The youngest Weasley beat him to it. He scolded her with tears and pain and affection, and Severus decided that that was enough. He saw the way they looked at each other.

"Sir?" Granger's voice shattered his thoughts.

She was sitting by the fire, parchment on her lap and quill poised eagerly right above it. There was no sign that she had ever been hurt and, in fact, she seemed almost _too _healthy, with a manic determination in her eyes.

"Let's begin," the potions master consented, the muscles in his face hardening.

When Severus focused all of his attention on people, he sat perfectly still and didn't take his eyes off of them. They usually squirmed under his gaze, but Granger didn't even notice. Impressed, Severus realized that she was focusing all of _her _attention on the task at hand too, so much so that his intensity slipped off of her like rain from spelled glass.

"Alright," the girl exhaled, still clearly choosing her words in her head. "We talked about traveling to when you were in school, before Dumbledore gained all of his power during the war, but we haven't actually picked a year. You were actually alive then, so when do you think we should arrive, sir?"

"If we're going to build the power to fight him, we'll need the time to do it," Severus mused. "At least a few years. If we begin in my second year, I believe we should have sufficient time. The war did not really escalate until my last few years in school, and that was when Dumbledore gained his power."

Hermione's back went rigid, surprise flashing in her eyes.

"Your second year?" She practically hissed. "How are we supposed to save you from the abuse if we don't have enough power until you're about to graduate?"

_Blast it. _When the hell had he earned so much loyalty from these children?

"You think to save the other me, Miss Granger?"

"Of course." She said, scrunching her nose at him — more baffled than distraught now. "That's half the point of this whole plan. Haven't I said that from the beginning? We have to save you and Harry by stopping him, so you two can finally heal."

"This won't change my past, you realize. My memories will still be the same."

"But you'll get closure," Hermione countered, waving her quill at him. "We'll save the Severus Snape of the past, a _child_ who has no idea what's in store for him at Hogwarts, and you'll see what a good person he is, and how you would have turned out without Dumbledore. Besides, we can't possibly leave him there, knowing what will happen to him."

As she spoke, she set her palms flat on her thighs and leaned forward. Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinning and turning down slightly just thinking of his past self. It was odd, how important this was to her. Nobody had looked at him with such concern in years.

_Lilly. _A pain he thought he had suppressed a long time ago shivered through him, and he had to clasp his hands together to hide the tremors.

"Sir? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I wish I had known there were people like you when I was young," Severus confessed. "I might not have chosen the path I did."

Most people would play dumb in her shoes, probing him to speak further instead of accepting his words at face value. But Granger understood. "I'm actually glad you chose the path you did, sir. I'm sorry you suffered for it, of course, but just imagining a reality where you weren't there to take Harry from Hogwarts…I don't even want to think of it. None of us would have been happy."

Why did she have to look at him with that grateful shine in her eyes? He had failed Harry, leaving him to suffer for years before he noticed what Dumbledore was doing. He hadn't invited any of them to leave Hogwarts and try to make their own paths; it wasn't Severus who found a solution to their troubles. They had done that on their own. He'd just worsened their burdens with the weight of his own past.

"And now?" His fingers ground painfully into the bones between his knuckles. "Doing this, leaving your lives for a different time and jumping into a battle zone, will _that_ make all of you happy?"

"Yes!" She beamed at him unnaturally, both too quickly and too widely for his comfort.

"You're hiding something," he accused.

Granger shook her head. "I'm already happy, sir. All my life, I've felt like my future depended on the actions of everybody around me. All I could hope to do was learn as much as I could, so that I could try to influence those actions. Nobody ever taught me that _my _actions could make my own future. That's what this is all about. Even if we can't undo what you and Harry have gone through, we can take back our future."

"Take it back, huh?" Severus murmured, stirred by her words.

She was playing on his emotions to make him ignore her secret, but he could still feel himself falling into the girl's rhythm, his thoughts and energy starting to align with hers. Stubborn gryffindor traits aside, he had wondered why she was so excited to do this. Now, he could feel what she did — they were on the cusp of a great change. There were infinitely more possibilities before him than he had ever imagined.

"So, of course we're going to save the other you," Hermione pressed, bringing the conversation further from what she was hiding. "There's no reason to go into this half-assed."

"Don't —" His thought slipped out before it was fully formed.

"Sorry?" She blinked, trying to process his words.

He forced himself to relax his guard, separating his hands and resting them on his knees. It took more willpower to explain than he had thought he possessed.

"My suffering began long before I attended Hogwarts, at the hands of my parents, but as dark as that upbringing was, there are some experiences I would would not sacrifice for anything. Certainly not for an easier life. As you said, my experiences made me who I am."

"Sir, we can't possibly _abandon_ you." She started to rise, then sat back down when the parchment almost tumbled from her lap.

"If we're to bring him down, we must expose his crimes," Severus explained. "Without a victim, there will be no way to do that. I know you won't like this, but you must let the other me encounter Dumbledore naturally. We can interfere before I become a Death Eater, but there's no other way to do this. There's no other way to stop him."

Hermione didn't say anything; she just stared an angry hole into the fire-scorched earth in front of her. Her fingers tapped rapidly against the side of her jaw, keeping pace with the racing of her mind.

The only viable alternative was using somebody else as a victim, and Severus knew her morals would be against that. Not even a mind as brilliant as hers could mitigate the harsh reality of their situation. Knowing that, he refused to sit and listen while she proposed futile alternatives in pursuit of a futile hope. It would only drag out his pain.

"It's difficult for me to put myself back into the mentality of the younger me, and I can't be sure this is accurate, but I believe I would have been much happier to be saved from going down Voldemort's path than to be rescued from Dumbledore. If you were simply to take the younger me away from my suffering, I — _he_ would resent it," The words, long kept hidden, tumbled from his throat, racing to escape before his mind caught up to them. "I would have thought myself weak for being unable to stand up to him, and I was very fragile then. I would have lost my will to keep fighting."

Hermione's gaze jumped from the ground to focus on him again, her heart shining hard through her eyes.

"You're not," she said sharply.

"Not what?"

"You're not weak because of what happened to you, no more than Harry is. I know it's easy to berate yourself for the things that you don't do, but that's not how you should be judging yourself."

"Then how should I be judging myself?" he asked, bemused to be lectured by a teenager. The roles in their little family were far too fluid.

She didn't move, but the spirit in her reply was so strong that she might as well have surged forward and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders.

"By what you _do _do. You saved Harry, you're willing to let another you suffer to get complete closure, you're helping Luna deal with her problems, and you're mentoring all of us. You spied for the Order, and you're sacrificing your career for a bunch of outcast teenagers. _Those _are the actions you should judge yourself by. You can't be weak, because you're a person who tries to be strong."

His chest rose and fell heavily in the silence as the clouds rolled by, guiding sunlight across their faces. Her words stripped his emotions down to the core, exposing his private darkness and mercilessly refashioning it into a pathway glimmering with hope. He was flattered to see himself through her eyes, so much so that he wanted to live up to her faith in him. Just a few kind words from her had won his loyalty.

Would the same work for his younger self?

"Truly remarkable," he said again, so softly that she couldn't make out his words.

"Sir?"

"It's nothing," he dismissed.

No more needed to be said because they both knew that her feelings had reached him.

"Right," she declared, once again redirecting their focus to the task at hand. "There's also the matter of what age you'd like to be when you go back."

"You mentioned that we'd need someone to play a parental figure, so it's probably best to leave me as I am."

"Are you okay with that? It'd be convenient to have you in that role, but this is your one chance to be whoever you want. You could go back to your youth if you wanted to."

"I assure you, Miss Granger," he drawled. "I have more than enough youth to handle with all of you around."

She grinned. "I understand, Severus. Thank you."

He abruptly remembered her secret. "Is that all?"

She pursed her lips, crossing out a couple of lines in her notes. For a moment, he thought he saw her face fall, but the expression was gone as soon as he noticed it. He could not read her nearly as well as she could see through him.

"Yes, that's all. I think I'll talk to the twins next."

_Together again. _George thought, ignoring the sting of it.

Even for an individual conference, they'd been grouped into one person. They were long used to the treatment, but the pain still welled up like regurgitated food every now and then.

_Well, we're genetically identical, after all. _Fred mused.

Hermione had come to the shop after her meeting with Snape, and hung around until closing, sitting in a corner and scribbling notes while she muttered to herself. Now, they were sitting in a semi-circle behind the counter, waiting while she finished gathering her thoughts.

"Are you going to open up your shop in the past?" Hermione began without lifting her head.

The twins looked at each other. _We can do that…? _George wondered.

"Because, really, unless you choose to be children again, I can't see you doing anything else with yourselves. And it's a good way to meet people, having a shop in the alley and all." She finally looked up, and seeing the confusion in their faces, eased off a bit sheepishly. "Sorry. It's not as though that's something you have to decide right this minute."

She was very considerate, in the embarrassed way that schoolchildren were when all they wanted was to be liked. She was like Neville in that way, Fred thought, though she had much more self-respect. He felt so old compared to the others when he saw their insecurities. There was no way he could leave them without an older brother figure to keep an eye on them.

_Right. _George agreed. _I don't think they understand how intense this whole thing is going to be._

"Whatever ages all of you choose, I want to be older than you," Fred announced.

"So if we all chose to be toddlers, you'd want to be an adolescent?" Hermione asked, pressing her lips together. She probably thought it a strange request.

"If that made sense," Fred shrugged. "It all depends on the backstory we build. If it makes more sense for us to be older than Hogwarts age, then that works too. We'll just have to let you decide."

"I'm flattered that you trust me," Hermione laughed, winking at him. She turned her attention to the other twin. "How about you, George?"

It was so unusual to be addressed as a separate entity that the younger twin was taken aback. "What's that?"

"Do you want to be the same age as Fred? Because theoretically, you could be different."

They missed a heartbeat. The temptation to become separate entities rose up in them, dark and terrible, but so did a painful loneliness just at the thought of it. And what purpose would it serve them, really?

"Yes," George grinned impishly at her as the moment passed. "It just wouldn't be natural to be a different age than Freddie here. Although, if you wanted to make him a couple of hours younger than me, I wouldn't complain."

"Don't even think about it," Fred warned the grinning Hermione.

"Alright, alright," Hermione dismissed, raising her palms in mock surrender. "We'll see what happens."

"Aww, come on," George whined, humor forced into his tone to hide the undercurrent of tension there.

"I'll think about it," She said lightly, in a tone that suggested she probably wouldn't seriously consider it. "But you two don't really strike me as the types that _like_ change."

_I really don't like this. _George thought. _She's reading us too well._

"That's…I'm surprised you picked up on that," Fred said, trying to make time for the younger twin to recover.

"Are you? If you could handle change, you wouldn't still be picking on Ron for being born."

Fred could feel George wince internally, nerves firing up again when he had almost settled them. They weren't always nice to their baby brother, but it had been a long time since they were malicious about it. Apparently, the girl had still picked up on the violent jealousy they thought they'd gotten rid of.

_Calm down. _Fred soothed.

"Do you think we're truly so bad?" He asked, tone light despite the emotion hidden underneath his words.

"Not at all," Hermione assured him. "Change is just your weakness, that's all."

"We're about to go back in time, you realize," the older twin drawled.

"Yes, but that's just a change of scenery. The kinds of changes you can't handle are relationships, anything that upsets the dynamic between you."

"Why do you know that?" George burst out, before he could get his emotions under control.

"Why?" Hermione laughed, taken aback by his reaction. "That's just the kind of thing you start to pick up on when you spend time with people."

_Most people, _George agreed. _But never us_.

_I guess we were being arrogant, to think that we were so different from everybody else. _

_Or maybe it's _her _that's different. _

"Are you two alright? You're being unusually quiet."

"Fine," they answered in unison.

"We were just thinking that if you and Ronnikins ever decided to act on all that burning attraction between you —"

"—You would have our blessing."

Hermione didn't blush; instead, she turned her head away bashfully to hide how deeply their words affected her.

"Thank you," she whispered.

_She didn't deny it, _George thought. _How unusual._

_I thought they seemed closer lately._

_They're growing up after all._

"Why, Gred," Fred began.

"Yes, Forge?"

"I think the brilliant Hermione might have just acknowledged her feelings for our baby brother. And you know what that means."

"By George, we've got to celebrate!"

It was their favorite pun, and it got a chuckle out of her, but the atmosphere stayed oddly fragile after that.

They held a miniature celebration right there in the shop, breaking out their favorite decorative pranks and sharing some bottles of butterbeer. Hermione acted perfectly friendly the whole time, but the twins noticed that she was a bit tense. She had been for days now. They made her laugh out loud, but they couldn't quite get rid of that tension.

It was only after they parted for the night that another thought struck.

_Hey, Fred? _

_Yeah?_

_Since when can Hermione tell us apart?_

"You really should sleep more."

He jumped, startled out of his daze by Hermione's voice. He'd been blanking out a lot lately, his body moving even when his mind shut down, too weary to focus on anything. He really should listen when people told him to sleep, but with studying two subjects, and plants that required attention at odd intervals of time, and staying up some nights with Harry so that he could wake him from the nightmares, he h—

"Neville?" Hermione prodded softly, coaxing him out of his mind.

"Yeah, sorry." He ran a dirt-streaked hand through his hair with a sigh and then dropped wearily to the cold marble bench across from Hermione, rubbing circles into his temples to try to wake himself up. It was only seven in the morning, and he hadn't gotten much sleep.

"You've been spending most of your time in this greenhouse lately. How have you been?" The girl probed, worry clear on her face. The twins had been bothering him about sleeping when they dropped by the other day too, but none of them really cared enough about him to force the issue.

No, that wasn't true. Neville had truly bonded with the others after they decided to pursue masteries, coming together with them over their biggest commonality: Harry. He knew that they now respected him as an individual — their paying more attention to Harry's issues than his didn't mean they cared for him any less.

"I'm great," Neville said, dropping his hands to his sides and basking in the smell of fresh dirt.

Hermione arched an eyebrow skeptically.

"No, really," the pudgy teen told her. "I love working in this greenhouse, and Gran's been much nicer to me since I dropped out. She even praises me to all of her pureblood friends when she actually goes out! I guess she likes that I have a purpose now. I like it too, really."

"It is a nice feeling," Hermione murmured in agreement, eyes fluttering shut as she took in the sunlight gleaming through the glass ceiling. She seemed a bit out of it.

Her next question distracted him from his concern.

"Are you sure you still want to leave?" She wondered.

"Of course!" He breathed. Sure, his life was looking up nowadays, but it was all because of Harry. It was Harry who empowered him, not the time period. "Wait. Do you—"

"Of course! I was just checking," Hermione murmured, eyes still closed.

"So, what are you going to do in the past, now that you've found the spell?" Neville asked. "Are you going to go for a mastery too?"

Even in his exhaustion, he heard her breath hitch and saw her face pinch together before she smoothed it out. He recognized the signs of hiding.

"Are you okay?" He asked. "You can always come to me with your problems, you know."

"I'm fine," she assured him, closing her eyes again with a content hum. "I don't really know what I'm going to do yet. I think I might just relax for a while."

"You, just relax?" Neville teased, though the question was serious. Something was definitely bothering Hermione, if she was saying that rest and studying didn't go hand in hand. This didn't fit her usual pattern.

"Even I get tired sometimes, you know. And _I_ actually sleep."

"Well, you're only human," Neville said, ignoring the barb. He knew he looked exhausted, but he couldn't stop moving. Ever since he had vowed to stop Dumbledore for Harry, he'd been more motivated than ever before. He was finally accomplishing things. If he stopped, he thought he might not be able to start again. He feared that more than anything.

The silence fell again, easy and comfortable between them. Hermione had made it clear that she wanted him to back off, so he would respect her wishes. They weren't particularly close, but the pair had always gotten along, ever since they first met on the Hogwarts Express. He wouldn't jeopardize that by forcing her to talk about something she wanted to keep inside her.

"Hey, Hermione?"

"What's up?"

"When we go back, I want to stay the age I am now. I'll get my mastery and my legal certification before we go, and then when we go back, I'll start taking cases to practice, so that when it's Dumbledore's turn, I'll have the strength to hold my own against him."

"That sounds like a good plan," Hermione agreed, drawing a heavily-used parchment out of her bag and scribbling something on it.

"But, Hermione," Neville continued, and then paused to calm down when he heard the waver in his voice. "Even if nobody else realizes it, I know what Harry will do. He'll want to go back to Hogwarts, to face Dumbledore."

"Of course he won't," Hermione said. "Harry is _terrified _of the —"

"That's why he'll go," Neville cut in. "Harry hates to feel helpless, and he always wants to protect people. He'll think that he has to go, or there will be different victims, and it'll be his fault. It's completely idiotic, but it's how he thinks."

"So you're telling me that I should stop him."

"No," Neville protested, and Hermione's head shot up. "He'd resent you for that, and I'm not sure he could handle Snape suffering while he's safe. Even if it's stupid, we should let him deal with all this shit the way he feels like he has to. We know it's only a matter of time before he gets his emotions back, though, so he'll have even more shit to deal with than he realizes."

"So what are you telling me to do, Neville?" Frustration leaked into her voice. It must be hard for her to have to plan all of this alone. "How can we help him if that's what he decides?"

"I can't go back with him, because I'll be much more useful in the ministry than in Hogwarts, but make sure that he doesn't just plunge headlong into the Headmaster's clutches."

"Neville —"

"Send somebody with him, and make sure that he has time to get used to his emotions again before he has to go back. Even if you make him a toddler, give him the time he needs."

"You really care about him." The girl regarded him gently, mushy-eyed.

"We all do," Neville said. "We're one big family."

And they were. All his life, Neville had been an outcast, his psyche coming second to others' egos, but now he had a whole family of people who valued him for who he was. He'd been reminded of that when they were so appalled to hear about him being thrown out of a window. The twins had pulled him out of the darkness he'd fallen into when Harry left, and then he'd found Harry and Snape, and Luna, and even Ron and Hermione had accepted him.

He'd even lost his stutter at some point without even realizing it. Neville had waited a long time for this family, and he would fight for as long as necessary to keep it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hermione started to pick up her scroll, but changed her mind when Ron sat right next to her, so close that their shoulders touched. He eyed the parchment, knowing she didn't want him to see her notes, but that her hands would be itching to do something as they spoke. The thick scent of soap wafted into his nose, stirring his blood and thickening the air in his lungs. He could feel the attraction heavy in the air between them, even though it was the wrong time to act on it.

Even though just the press of their arms together gave him goosebumps.

"We've already chosen a time period, and I'm working on a plausible back story, so all I need you to tell me is what kind of life you'd like to have when we go back and how old you'd like to be," Hermione summarized.

Ron looked at her, eyes smoldering as he thought of his ideal future. She fidgeted, apparently more aware of his gaze than usual today, and Ron couldn't help but reach out and take one of her hands in between his, wanting to see her react to him.

"I want to be whatever age you're going to be," He declared, leaving the rest unspoken.

"Y-yeah, okay," Hermione agreed, turning towards her scroll again before remembering that she couldn't take notes right now.

Ron ran his thumbs over her palm soothingly, noting the calluses from where she held her quill.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay? No more side effects from the demons?" He asked as his sandpaper fingers passed over smooth skin. Something had felt off lately, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

"No, I'm fine," Hermione assured him softly, still fidgeting under his attention.

She'd never known how to respond to concern. Ron shifted so that he was turned towards her, still holding her hand in his and studying her reactions. She was avoiding eye contact, and he could see the wrinkles around her eyes that meant she was thinking deeply about something.

"So," she finally said. "Assuming you stay the same age, what kind of future do you want?"

"I think you know," he dared, letting some of his want drip into his voice as his head dipped towards her.

Hermione went stiff for a moment before she yanked her hand away and turned her nose up, still not looking at him.

"This is serious, Ron," she scolded.

"So am I," the redhead muttered, but knew when to back off. "I don't see any reason to do anything differently than I planned to do here. I'd like to work for the DoD. There are a lot of stupid laws, but Harry was still hurt by someone he should have been able to trust. I want to change things so that can't happen again."

"Oh, Ron…"

"And besides, I'm better at strategy when I'm not in the heat of battle. If I want to have a future, I've got to live long enough to see it, right?"

"You've grown a lot," Hermione observed, pride leaking into her voice.

"In more ways than one," Ron said.

Heat flared through his ears moments after he spoke, as he realized the innuendo in his words. He was probably bright red, but if Hermione noticed, she had the grace not to say anything. _Stupid stupid stupid, _Ron told himself. _You can't say things like that to a girl like Hermione._

"Ron, are you alright?" Hermione asked, turning to look at him with amusement shining in her eyes.

She had picked up on it after all. Ron fell in love all over again, marveling that he had a chance to be in love with someone so perfect. One day soon, he would act on that love.He would just have to wait until they got settled in the past. They had literally all the time in the world to make a life together, so Ron just had to be patient.

"Hermione," he pleaded. "Please don't make us siblings."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Yes, I'm sure," Harry said.

"Harry," Hermione protested, leaning towards him. "You're so afraid of just your _memories _of Dumbledore that you've locked away your emotions. How could you possibly handle going back there?"

"It's something I have to do," Harry said. "We need someoneon the inside, and I know his mind best. Besides, isn't this supposed to be about me getting closure?"

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed. She clearly wanted to protest more, but she held herself back. "So then, when you get to Hogwarts, what are you going to do? You'll just be a nameless first year. Who says Dumbledore will have any interest in you if you're not Harry Potter?"

Of course she would realize that there was more to his plan than that.

"I was thinking I'd play the victim," Harry said. "I don't have much interest in befriending kids, so I can play the kind of kid that everyone picks on, maybe even someone who has a bad home life. And I'll seem like a genius, knowing everything that Snape's taught me. Those things should attract Dumbledore to me. Worst case scenario, I jerk off where he'll catch me."

Herminone grimaced at the thought. She reached out to touch him, but just as her hand was about to make contact, she pulled it back.

"Harry, is there some reason you feel the need to attract him to you? There are other ways to deal with this, even from within Hogwarts."

"You're planning to use Snape as the victim, right?" Harry asked, knowing he was right when Hermione winced. "But Snape's not exactly a sympathetic figure, so even if you manage to get people to pity him, it might not crush Dumbledore's reputation the way we want it to. If there are two victims in different houses, and if I'm playing the role of someone more likable, we have a better shot at this."

Hermione sighed, her breath streaming heavily from her mouth and nose in exasperation.

"You know I'm right," he pressed. "We have to do this right."

"Well, it certainly would be an advantage, and it would be better if young Severus wasn't alone…"

"So you agree?" Harry knew better than to assume he had won until she admitted it.

"But what about you?" Hermione pleaded. "Harry, you have to try to recover from this, not hurt yourself more. None of us wants to let you be hurt."

"I feel absolutely no pain right now," Harry said. "What you keep asking me to let Snape do will hurt me, so as far as I'm concerned, you do want me to be hurt."

Why couldn't they see that? They kept insisting that he was hurting, but he hurt less than ever right now. He didn't feel _anything_.

"But being numb isn't the same as healing, Harry," Hermione said.

She reached out to take his hand, and he let her, despite the flashback that stirred in his head. He wouldn't have been able to bear the touch if he was still emotional, if the alarming memories that trumpeted through his mind still held any power to hurt him.

"Hermione, do you honestly think I'll ever recover if I just get a job and try to move on with my life? Have I ever functioned like that?"

"No." The girl sighed, putting her face in her hands. "I suppose not. You always have to fight things out to get over them."

"Right. So, tell me again why going back to Hogwarts is supposed to be bad for me?"

"You won't have the strength to fight things out like this, Harry," Hermione protested, her voice gentling as if she were talking to someone much stupider than her. If he weren't used to her mannerisms, he would have thought she was insulting him.

"So then we're stuck. Stalemate."

"Not quite," Hermione conceded. "I'll agree with this plan on one condition. You're going to have to unlock your emotions. You know there's no way for you to get closure otherwise."

Something deep within his mind stirred, plugged synapses trying to reconnect. Magic redirected them away from him, defending his emotions where they'd been locked away. Harry knew he'd go mad if he let go of that control.

"No deal," He said, reasoning that she would eventually give in. She wouldn't try to force him to give up on his only chance at doing this right.

"I know you're scared, but —"

"I'm not scared. It's just illogical for me to suffer just because —"

"Don't be afraid, Harry." Hermione's voice was stronger this time, and she stood up, towering over him where he sat cross-legged on the ground. "Stand up straight, like Sirius would. _He_ wouldn't be afraid."

Harry refused to rise. _How dare she? How dare she try to turn the one wound that truly has nothing to do with any of this against me._

"I'm not him," Harry said. He would have been bitter if his mind was capable of it. "I'm not like Sirius at all."

"To hell you're not," Hermione snarled, the irritation that had been building for the past year finally bubbling over. "You're the bravest person I know. The Harry _I_ know is terrified of lots of things, but he would never let something like that stop him from living his life. The Harry _I _know always dreamed of meeting his parents, and he would never want to do it without the emotions to appreciate them!"

That struck a chord.

He hadn't even thought about how he would look to his parents. The Marauders would be at Hogwarts too, and there was no way they would like him the way he was now. Like wildfire, a plan started to form in his head. He would play his victim role, and then he would win the trust of his parents and their friends, and let them discover the truth. Once they knew, Dumbledore would be toast. They would never keep it quiet.

But he had to have emotions for it to work. He had to be brave, and jump back into the darkness that haunted his nightmares.

Harry stood up, meeting Hermione's gaze head on.

"That's more like it." She smiled.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'd like to be six," Luna said.

She was dancing around in the woods where they'd gone off to talk alone. After a spin, she touched her toes and turned to look at Hermione upside-down. Sometimes, when you changed the angle you looked from, you could see things that you would have missed otherwise.

"You're serious," Hermione observed.

Unlike Luna, Hermione was very still, sitting with a parchment in her lap as she tried to work out all the details. The ravenclaw found their differences to be very relaxing, like the two sides of a perfectly balanced scale.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be? You should always be serious when the blood is rushing to your brain."

"That's…valid," the other girl agreed. "Why six?"

"Well, it's an arbitrary number really, but I always liked being six. That was the year before my mom died, you see, so it was a happy time in my life."

Luna had never talked about that before, with anyone, but it was the kind of thing you told your friends. Even someone as inexperienced as Luna knew that much. Hermione was the first female she'd felt like she could trust since her mother was alive, so she had to open up to her to build their connection.

"Your aura is drooping," Luna told the Gryffindor. "Cheer up, I'm quite happy nowadays."

She spun again, this time whirling around on one leg and letting her skirt flutter prettily. It was hard to be sad when you were spinning, or watching someone else do it. Luna always spun in circles when she was upset, but this time, it was Hermione who she was trying to cheer up.

""Is that really the only reason you chose six? You usually have more than one reason for something."

"Well, I also figure I'll be the youngest that way," Luna admitted, pleased that Hermione had perceived that. It was so strange to have someone who understood her.

"You already are the youngest," Hermione supplied weakly, watching as if hypnotized, her mind far away.

"And I'd like to stay that way," Luna declared. "Plus, it'll be fun to have Severus as a father."

"You realize you'll have to go back to Hogwarts eventually if you do this."

Ah. Was that what was bothering the other girl? That she couldn't save them all from returning to the castle? Luna twirled; this was a dance that she planned to win.

"Dumbledore has no interest in me. Never did. Is there some reason you're trying to talk me out of being six?" Luna asked. "We can still be friends, even if we end up in really different ages."

That triggered something, but not the straightforward emotion she'd expected. The flames of Hermione's aura grew turbulent, growing and shrinking as if she were teetering on a brink.

"What's wrong?" the blonde probed, light and careful so she didn't push her friend over the wrong edge of that brink.

Hermione knew better than to deny the problem with an aura-reader around, but she didn't answer either. Luna stopped her spinning to study the other girl, since she was no longer watching what was in front of her. Her lips were pressed tightly together, fingers twitching rapidly as she balanced on the edge of whatever was disturbing her.

"What if…what if I had been killed when I went to find the demons?" Hermione finally asked.

"That would have been very sad, and then I wouldn't have a female friend anymore," Luna answered, her voice showing none of the alarm that flared through her. "What makes you ask that?"

She stepped lightly to Hermone's side and sat down, leaning forward so that she could peer up into the girl's face. There was another long pause as she considered her response.

"Ron was angry with me," came her carefully-worded answer. "I was just wondering if you would have been as well. But sad isn't much better. I don't want anyone to be sad over me."

"Hey," Luna said carefully, unease stirring in the pit of her stomach as she rested a hand on her friend's arm. "Are you hurt? Are there more side-effects from the demon, like Severus thought?"

"No, no, of course not!" Hermione rushed to assure her.

Luna could tell she was still hiding something. She didn't like to pry usually, but Hermione was her friend, and something was really bothering her, so she thought that maybe it was her job to ask more questions. Grey eyes locked onto the other girl's aura as she moved in on her target.

"Then why are you worried about how we'd react to your death?"

"Don't you ever think about things like that?" Hermione tilted her head away to gaze at the treetops.

She was running away, but Luna was afraid to pursue the issue with Hermione tottering so dangerously on whatever was bothering her. It would be better to shift the conversation away from death.

"Not usually. Death is an uncomfortable topic for me," Luna admitted.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It was thoughtless of me to bring it up."

"You're my friend," Luna dismissed. "You're supposed to talk to me about these things. You're sure you're alright?"

"Yeah. But now that I'm thinking about it, there is one thing."

"Yes?"

"Who knows what kind of danger we'll face when we go back into the past? If by chance something were to happen to me, if…if I die…"

"What?" Luna asked.

"Don't be sad."

Don't be sad? Just thinking about death made her sad. It was one of the only things that did.

"Hmmmm, no promises," Luna lilted. "But I guess the same thing goes for me, okay?"

"Huh?"

"If anything were to happen to me, if_ I_ were to die, I would want you to celebrate my life, not mourn my death. That's how it should have been for mama."

"Okay," Hermione agreed easily, letting Luna link their arms and rest her head on her shoulder.

They chatted about lighter topics for the rest of the afternoon, like Luna's impending test for a Potions Mastery. By the time they rejoined the group, Hermione's aura had gone back to normal, and Luna didn't think about the odd conversation again.

Until they cast the spell, at least.

It was fun to do this chapter from everyone's perspective. I wrote this a couple months ago, but I wanted to wait to post it with Chapter 17. That's not getting me anywhere, though. So, I'm posting this and I'll try to have 17 pronto.


End file.
